'u  lor'rr^ 


PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


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bX  9178  .F5  S4 

Flint,  Robert,  1838-1910 

Sermons  and  addresses 


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A/ 


SERMONS  AND  ADDRESSES 


BY 


y 


EGBERT   FLINT,   D.D.,  LL.D. 

PROFESSOR  OF  DIVINITY  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  EDINBURGH 
AUTHOR   OF    'theism,'    '  ANTI-THEISTIC   THEORIES,"    'HISTORICAL   PHILOSOPHY 

in  france  and  french  belgium  and  switzerland," 
'socialism,'  etc. 


NEW    YORK 

CHAELES    SCKIBNEE'S    SONS 

153-157    FIFTH    AVENUE 
1899 


All  Rights  reserved 


PEEFATOEY  NOTE. 


Some  of  the  discourses  in  this  volume  have  previously- 
appeared  in  print.  Most  of  them  are  now  published 
for  the  first  time.  The  occasion  on  which  any  of  them 
was  delivered  has  been  indicated  only  where  it  was 
deemed  necessary  to  do  so. 

For  revision  of  the  sheets  of  the  volume  in  passing 
through  the  press  I  am  deeply  indebted  to  the  same 
kind  friend  who  revised  my  "Theism"  in  1877,  and 
" Anti-Theistic  Theories"  in  1879. 


Johnstone  Lodge,  Craigmillar  Park, 
Edinburgh,  September  1899. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

A   UNIVERSITY   TERCENTENARY   SERMON 1 

CHRISTIAN    UNITY 11 

THE  GOOD   AND   PERFECT   GIFT   OP   ART 28 

JESUS  CHRIST,   THE   FAITHFUL   WITNESS,  THE   FIRST-BEGOTTEN   OF 

THE   DEAD,   AND   THE   PRINCE   OF   THE   KINGS   OP  THE   EARTH  39 

THE   EARTH   IS  THE   LORD'S 56 

CLAIMS  OF  DIVINE   WISDOM   ON   YOUNG   MEN              ....  67 

THE   CHIEF   GOOD 82 

OUR  FATHER  IN   HEAVEN 94 

THE   DIVINE   WILL 109 

ONE  THING   NEEDFUL,   AND   ONE   THING   TO   BE   DONE     .           .           .  123 

BEHOLDING   THE   WONDERS   OF  GOD's   LAW 133 

NONCONFORMITY   TO   THIS   WORLD 145 

REST   IN   CHRIST 155 

SUPREME   LOVE   DUE   TO   CHRIST 166 

A   FAITHFUL   SAYING 176 

CHRIST   SUFFERING   FOR  SINS 184 

THE   LAMB   OP   GOD 196 

ENDS   OP  CHRIST'S   DEATH   AND   RESURRECTION        ....  204 

CHRIST   MADE   UNTO   US   WISDOM 213 

CHRIST  MADE   UNTO   US  RIGHTEOUSNESS 223 

CHRIST   MADE   UNTO   US   SANCTIFICATION 234 

GOD'S   SOVEREIGNTY — MAN'S   EVIL    EYE 241 

RENDER  UNTO   C^SAR   THE   THINGS   WHICH    ARE   C^SAR'S                   .  254 

WORK   WHILE   IT  IS  DAY 264 

CHRISTIANITY   IN   RELATION  TO   OTHER   RELIGIONS            .           .           ,  275 

SOME   REQUIREMENTS   OP  A  PRESENT-DAY  CHRISTIAN  APOLOGETICS  299 

vii 


SERMONS  AND  ADDRESSES. 


A  UNIVEKSITY  TERCENTENARY   SERMON." 

"  Remember  the  former  things  of  old  :  for  I  am  God,  and  there  is  none  else  ;  I 

am  God,  and  there  is  none  like  me." — Isaiah  xlvi.  9. 
"Forgetting  those  things  which  are  behind,  and  reaching  forth  unto  those  things 

which  are  before,  I  press  toward  the  mark  for  the  prize  of  the  high  calling 

of  God  in  Christ  Jesus." — Philippians  iii.  13,  14. 

WE  have  come  together  at  this  time  to  "  remember  the 
former  things  of  old."  Whether  drawn  hither  by  interest 
in  an  institution  in  which  we  hold  office,  or  by  gratitude  for  the 
benefits  of  education  received  in  it,  or  by  a  patriotic  appre- 
ciation of  the  services  which  it  has  rendered  to  our  native  land, 
or  by  a  generous  recognition  of  its  claims  to  honour  as  one  of 
the  world's  great  schools  of  learning,  our  common  purpose  is 
gladly  and  gratefully  to  commemorate  whatever  in  its  history 
we  can  regard  with  legitimate  satisfaction. 

And  surely  we  may  well  so  regard  its  history  as  a  whole. 
When,  three  hundred  years  ago,  the  University  of  this  city  had 
its  small  and  humble  commencement,  like  a  tiny,  feeble  plant, 
set  in  a  frozen  soil,  under  a  wintry  sky,  and  amidst  gathering 
storms,  it  "  scarce  reared  above  the  parent  earth  its  tender 
form."  Its  development  through  its  earlier  stages  was  slow  and 
precarious,  not  its  prosperity  only  but  its  very  existence  long 
depending  on  a  multitude  of  changeful  and  conflicting  influ- 
ences, any  one  of  which  might  have  been  fatal  to  it,  while  no 
human  sagacity  could  have  foreseen  their  real  effect  on  its 
destiny ;  but  the  needed  protection  and  support  were  continu- 
ously vouchsafed  it,  until  at  length  there  came  happier  days 
and  clearer  skies,  the  abundant  dew  and  the  bright  sunshine, 
and  the  truly  astonishing  growtli  of  recent  times. 

1  Preached  in  St  Giles'  Church,  Edinburgh,  April  IG,  18S4. 

A 


2  A    UNIVERSITY   TERCENTENARY   SERMON. 

It  has  throughout  been  ministered  to  according  to  its  wants. 
For  example,  at  critical  seasons  the  fittest  men  to  preside  over 
its  affairs  have  always  been  granted  it.  Thus,  when,  at  its 
origin,  its  feeble  vitality  could  only  be  preserved  and  developed 
by  intense  religious  zeal,  Rollock  was  given  ;  when  the  storms 
of  religious  passion  swept  over  the  land,  the  most  competent 
directing  mind  which  Scotland  then  possessed — that  of  Hen- 
derson— was  placed  at  its  service ;  when  fanaticism  and  intoler- 
ance had  converted  the  country  into  a  well  of  Marah,  in  which 
all  sweetness  was  in  danger  of  being  lost,  and  when  safety  was 
only  to  be  had  in  pious  quietness,  the  saintly  Leighton  was 
lent ;  when  political  sagacity  was  peculiarly  required,  it  was 
conferred  in  the  person  of  Carstares ;  and  when  the  transition 
from  an  ecclesiastical  to  a  literary  epoch  needed  to  be  wisely 
effected,  no  one  more  suited  to  direct  the  movement  could  have 
been  found  than  Robertson. 

What  has  been  contributed  to  the  prosperity  of  the  Univer- 
sity by  patrons,  protectors,  and  benefactors ;  what  measure  of 
strength  or  renown  it  has  received  from  the  achievements  and 
distinction  of  those  who  have  filled  its  higher  offices  and  its 
special  chairs ;  what  literature,  learning,  science,  philosophy, 
medicine,  law,  theology,  owe  to  those  who  have  taught  in  it  or 
to  those  who  have  been  trained  in  it ;  what  numbers  have  gone 
forth  from  it  and  what  influence  they  have  exerted ;  how  all 
bitter  controversies  within  it  are  at  length  ended ;  how  its 
students  have  increased ;  how  its  government  has  been  widened ; 
— these  are  things  to  which  it  would  be  unreasonable  to  do 
more  in  this  place  than  simply  refer,  but  they  are  among  the 
things  most  appropriate  for  us  to  bear  in  mind,  and  things  the 
contemplation  of  which  may  well  deepen  our  sense  of  indebted- 
ness to  the  wisdom  and  the  goodness  ever  present,  never 
failing,  through  the  three  hundred  years  of  history  which  we 
commemorate . 

In  remembering  things  like  these,  must  we  necessarily 
indulge  in  a  self-exalting  spirit  ?  I  trust  not,  and  cannot  see 
why  we  should.  If,  in  the  proceedings  in  which  we  are  to  be 
engaged,  any  one  connected  with  the  University  should  have  to 
descant  a  little  on  its  glories,  or  even  on  those  of  his  own  office, 
must  he  thereby  inevitably  lay  himself  open  to  the  charge  of 


A    UNIVERSITY    TERCENTENARY    SERMON.  3 

self-glorification,  as  having  been  deemed  worthy  of  association 
with  such  an  institution,  or  of  succeeding  certain  famous  men  ? 
Surely  not.  Surely  the  true  and  natural  consequence  of  any 
thoughts  appropriate  to  this  time  must  be  rather  to  diminish 
than  to  increase  our  feelings  of  individual  self-importance. 
Surely  connection  with  any  great  historical  institution  which 
has  been  blessed  with  length  of  days,  with  gradually  gathered 
honours,  and  accumulated  means  of  usefulness,  ought  to  cause 
a  man  to  realise  that  the  institution  does  more  for  him  than  he 
can  do  for  it ;  that  office  therein  gives  to  the  holder  thereof  far 
more  of  influence  and  of  credit  than  the  holder  can  give  to  the 
office  ;  that  the  parts  are,  in  this  instance,  far  more  dependent 
on  the  whole  than  the  whole  on  the  parts;  that  while  the 
worthiest  and  most  active  of  the  parts  must  soon  decay  and 
pass  away,  the  whole  can  so  renew  itself  as  still  to  live  on  and 
prosper ;  that  the  work  of  the  individuals  in  this  large  and 
enduring  society  derives  in  a  great  measure  its  value  not  from 
the  personal  merit  of  the  workers,  but  from  its  relation  to  what 
has  been  done  by  their  predecessors  and  is  being  done  by  their 
colleagues. 

It  is  one  chief  reason  for  not  ignoring  any  real  and  solid  ties 
which  bind  us  to  the  past  and  to  our  fellow-men,  that  we  are 
thereby  in  some  measure  emancipated  from  the  thraldom  of  a 
narrow  and  selfish  individualism.  It  is  one  great  advantage  of 
connection  with  institutions  which  are  not  the  mere  products 
of  a  day  or  the  creations  of  an  individual  mind  or  will,  but 
truly  historical  growths,  sealed  with  God's  own  impress  of 
permanence,  that  we  are,  in  consequence  thereof,  naturally,  if 
not  necessarily,  made  to  feel  that  we  are  sharers  with  men  of 
many  generations  in  a  life  far  larger  than  our  own.  The  con- 
sciousness of  membership  in  such  an  institution  deserves  to  be 
cherished  just  because  it  so  directly  counteracts  an  isolating 
self-glorification,  so  naturally  tends  to  a  due  forgetfulness  of 
self  in  a  true  recognition  of  our  relations  to  others,  and  so 
manifestly  contributes  to  generate  and  strengthen  that  sense 
of  membership  in  the  body-politic  whence  springs  patriotism, 
that  sense  of  membership  in  the  holy  Catholic  Church  which 
finds  expression  in  Christian  piety,  and  that  sense  of  member- 
ship in  universal  humanity  which  is  the  source  of  philanthropy. 


4  A    UNIVERSITY    TERCENTENARY    SERMON. 

It  may  lead  us  to  magnify  our  offices ;  it  may  render  us  more 
sensible  of  the  honourableness  of  our  work ;  it  may  give  us 
assurance  that  what  we  do  in  connection  with,  and  for  the  good 
of,  the  whole  to  which  we  belong,  will  in  some  form  outlive 
ourselves,  and  not  cease  to  influence  future  generations;  but 
it  ought  to  make  us  think  not  more  but  less  of  our  own  small 
individualities. 

Nay,  more :  to  realise  aright  the  significance  of  the  things 
we  would  commemorate,  and  to  feel  what  is  implied  in  our 
relationship  to  them,  must  carry  our  minds  and  hearts  yet 
farther  and  higher, — must  raise  them  even  to  an  apprehension 
of  that  ultimate  truth  which  gives  unity  to  all  thought,  and  to 
contact  with  that  sacred  Presence  which  gives  sanctity  to  all 
action.  The  University  has  grown  and  prospered.  Why  ?  Is 
it  merely  through  what  has  been  done  within  it  or  by  it  ?  Is 
all  said  in  explanation  of  its  growth  and  prosperity  when  you 
have  spoken  of  those  who  have  ruled  in  it,  taught  in  it,  studied 
in  it,  and  conferred  benefits  on  it  ?  Certainly  not.  Obviously, 
one  great  reason  why  the  University  has  grown  and  prospered 
is,  that  it  has  grown  with  the  growth  and  participated  in  the 
prosperity  of  a  life  larger  than  its  own.  It  has  been  received 
into  and  appropriated  by  the  national  life,  been  responsive  to 
and  expressive  of  the  national  life  ;  and  placed  here  in  this  city 
at  the  very  centre  of  that  life,  the  organ  has  shared  in  the 
good  fortune  and  well-being  of  the  entire  organism.  It  is 
what  it  is  this  day,  after  its  three  hundred  years  of  existence, 
because  these  three  hundred  years  have  been  not  only  to  it  but 
to  Scotland  what  they  have  been ;  hence,  although  almost  two 
out  of  these  three  centuries  were  peculiarly  dark  and  sad,  dis- 
tracted with  civil  and  religious  strife,  and  crowded  with  mani- 
fold crimes,  follies,  and  afflictions,  yet  throughout  the  whole 
period  a  spirit,  a  life,  large  enough  to  pervade  a  nation,  and  to 
connect  and  comprehend  a  series  of  generations,  has  ruled  and 
worked,  and  made  for  truth  and  righteousness,  and  at  length 
brought  about  that  unity  and  order,  that  political  independence 
and  spiritual  freedom,  that  measure  of  reasonableness  and  good 
feeling,  that  degree  of  peace  and  prosperity  which  we  are 
privileged  to  enjoy,  and  owing  to  which  so  many  of  our  institu- 
tions flourish. 


A    UNIVERSITY   TERCENTENARY    SERMON.  5 

But  is  even  this  all  ?  Has  the  University  lived  only  in  the 
life  of  Scotland  ?  Has  it  prospered  only  because  it  has  been 
enriched  with  Scottish  thought  and  sustained  by  Scottish 
energy?  Nay.  On  the  contrary,  Scotland  itself  has  lived 
and  prospered  only  because  participant  in  a  life  larger  than 
its  own, — a  life  with  which  its  Universities  have  especially 
served  to  connect  it, — the  life  which  rules  and  works  in 
universal  humanity — which  binds  together  all  generations  and 
peoples — which,  during  the  last  three  hundred  years,  has  been 
lifting  up  not  Scotland  only  but  all  the  nations  of  Eui'ope  into 
higher  regions  of  thought,  into  a  purer  atmosphere  of  feeling, 
and  marvellously  revealing  itself  in  the  discoveries  of  science, 
in  the  developments  of  art,  in  great  social  changes,  in  the 
increase  of  all  kinds  of  knowledge,  in  the  history  of  the  human 
intellect  and  its  ideas,  of  the  human  heart  and  its  affections, 
of  the  human  will  and  its  energies.  There  has  been  one  life 
which,  although  working  in  many  lands  and  under  the  most 
diverse  conditions,  has  never  lost  its  unity ;  there  has  been  one 
spirit  everywhere  present,  which,  amidst  all  follies  and  per- 
versities of  men,  has  never  contradicted  its  character  as  a  spirit 
of  truth,  of  justice,  and  of  goodness ;  and  this  universal  life 
makes  of  the  nations  an  organic  whole  and  members  one  of 
another ;  this  all-pervasive  spirit  is  the  great  common  teacher 
of  the  schools  of  the  world,  and  causes  each  to  be  a  debtor  to 
all  the  others. 

This  life,  this  spirit,  what  is  it  ?  What  but  the  life  and  the 
spirit  of  God  ?  Of  G  od,  the  unknown,  the  unknowable,  in  an 
infinity  of  respects ;  but  also  of  God,  the  knowable,  the  trust- 
able,  the  lovable ;  the  ever  and  everywhere  self-revealing  God, 
who  shines  upon  us  from  the  remotest  stars,  who  acts  in  every 
atom  of  matter,  who  vitalises  every  cell  of  our  bodies,  who  is 
the  light  in  every  true  thought  and  the  virtue  in  every  great 
and  good  deed,  who  rules  the  whole  history  of  humanity  from 
within,  determining  both  its  path  and  its  goal;  the  God  in 
whom  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being,  and  into  com- 
munion with  whom  we  can  enter  alike  by  the  Hfe  of  reason,  of 
love,  and  of  duty ;  the  God  whom  to  serve  is  highest  glory, 
whom  to  enjoy  is  deepest  happiness. 

Remember  the  former  things  of  old,  for  God  is  God,  and 


6  A    UNIVERSITY   TERCENTENARY   SERMON. 

there  is  none  else ;  for  He  is  God,  and  there  is  none  like  Him. 
It  is  the  traces  of  the  power  and  wisdom,  of  the  life  and  love 
of  God  in  those  former  things,  which  make  them  worth  re- 
membering. It  is  remembrance  of  them  in  relation  to  Him 
which  is  the  right  remembrance  of  them, — snch  a  remembrance 
of  them  as  can  do  us  no  harm,  and  may  well  do  us  great  good. 

We  do  well,  then,  this  day  to  remember  the  former  things 
of  old,  and  to  commemorate  the  history  of  the  University. 
We  do  well  if  we  seek  to  appreciate  at  its  full  value  the 
inheritance  which  our  predecessors  have  left  us ;  to  stir  up 
within  us  the  consciousness  of  participation  in  the  corporate 
and  collective  life  of  this  national  institution ;  to  put  away 
from  us  the  shallow  and  dangerous  spirit  which  ignores  or 
despises  the  past,  and  regards  even  its  most  helpful  ties  merely 
as  chains  to  be  broken ;  and  to  cherish  instead  a  spirit  which 
discerns  and  reverences  the  reason  that  has  ruled  in  history — 
which  would  retain,  apply,  and  utilise  whatever  of  truth  and 
goodness  the  past  has  brought  down  to  the  present — which  is 
humble  enough  to  feel  and  intelligent  enough  to  perceive  that 
it  needs  whatever  strength  and  wealth  it  can  derive  from  the 
past  to  fulfil  the  duties  of  the  present  and  to  meet  the  demands 
of  the  future. 

But  this  is  only  the  half  of  the  truth  and  the  half  of  our 
duty.  The  God  who  has  been  in  the  past — the  Spirit  of  life, 
and  truth,  and  goodness  which  has  pervaded  the  past — is  in 
the  present  and  will  be  in  the  future,  and  we  must  not  so  cling 
to  the  dead  past  as  to  lose  hold  of  the  life  which  was  in  it,  but 
has  now  risen  above  it,  and  is  ever  rising  higher.  The  past 
itself  has  been,  as  it  were,  constantly  striving  to  transcend 
itself,  and  we  should  be  unfaithful  to  the  whole  spirit  and 
teaching  even  of  the  past,  if  we  did  not,  like  the  apostle, 
forget  the  things  that  are  behind,  and  reach  forth  unto  those 
things  which  are  before,  and  press  towards  the  mark  for  the 
prize  of  the  high  calling  of  God.  While,  therefore,  we  rever- 
ence all  that  has  been  honourable  in  the  past,  and  utilise  all 
that  is  useful  which  has  come  down  to  us  from  the  past ;  while 
we  distrust  all  modes  of  thought  and  schemes  of  reform  which 
do  not  adequately  take  account  of  the  past, — let  us  not  suppose 
that  we  can  abide  in  the  past  or  perpetuate  the  past ;  that  we 


A    UNIVERSITY    TERCENTENARY    SERMON.  7 

ought  to  retain  anything  which  has  plainly  outlived  its  useful- 
ness ;  that  we  can  meet  new  requirements  with  old  resources ; 
that  the  problems  of  the  future  will  not  task  to  the  utmost  our 
inventiveness  as  well  as  our  energy ;  that  we  may  afford  to 
shut  our  eyes  to  the  light  which  shines  from  any  land,  or  to 
reject  aid  from  any  quarter.  Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead, 
but  let  us  follow  that  which  never  dies,  and  the  revelations  of 
which  are  ever  increasing  in  clearness,  in  fulness,  and  in  beauty. 
The  past  has  brought  nothing  to  perfection,  and  the  future 
ought  to  be  in  all  respects  an  advance  and  improvement  on 
the  past,  since  it  can  start  from  it  and  profit  by  it.  The 
appearance  of  a  pessimistic  philosophy  here  and  there,  and  the 
still  wider  prevalence  of  a  pessimistic  frame  of  spirit,  do  not 
prevent  the  present  age  from  being  on  the  whole  an  exception- 
ally hopeful  one,  and,  doubtless,  it  will  be  its  own  fault  if  that 
hopefulness  prove  vain.  It  is  not  into  a  dull  and  uninviting 
future,  not  into  one  which  we  need  fear  to  find  empty  or  un- 
remunerative,  but  into  one  filled  with  the  promises  of  discovery, 
gleaming  with  the  crowns  of  victory,  that  we   are  called  to 

enter. 

"  Before  us  shines  a  glorious  world, 
Fresh  as  a  banner,  bright,  unfurled, 
To  music  suddenly." 

In  all  directions  new  fields  of  thought  and  enterprise  are 
being  opened  up  to  the  human  mind,  and  new  conquests  are 
being  placed  within  its  reach.  Old  subjects,  like  the  speech 
and  thought  of  ancient  Greece  and  Home,  have  come  to  be 
seen  under  new  lights,  and  instead  of  having  lost  in  value,  as 
the  ignorant  or  superficial  may  suppose,  have  acquired  in  these 
latter  times  a  previously  unknown  significance,  rendering  them 
more  capable  than  ever  of  rewarding  a  life's  devotion  to  them, 
and  more  deserving  than  ever  of  recognition  and  support. 
That  in  the  regions  of  mathematics  great  discoveries  and 
useful  applications  may  be  indefinitely  multiplied,  if  only  an 
adequate  supply  of  competent  minds  be  forthcoming,  and 
sufficient  inducement  for  them  to  work  be  provided,  is  what 
no  one  will  dispute.  The  extraordinarily  rapid  advance  of  the 
physical  and  biological  sciences  in  recent  years,  has  led  some 
to  suppose  that  their  present  pace  of  movement  cannot  long 


8  A    UNIVERSITY   TERCENTENARY   SERMON. 

be  maintained,  but  the  suspicion  is  only  shared  in  by  those 
who  judge  them  from  without,  and  finds  no  acceptance  among 
those  who  are  able  to  see  from  within,  and  who  are  conse- 
quently aware  that,  numerous  as  are  the  questions  which  these 
sciences  have  of  late  been  answering,  still  more  numerous  are 
the  questions  which  they  have  been  raising  and  leaving  to  be 
answered  in  the  future.  This,  however,  is  obvious  in  regard 
to  them,  that  in  the  same  degree  in  which  they  are  developed 
and  specialised,  in  which  their  spheres  of  research  are  extended 
and  their  means  of  research  improved,  must  there  be  an  addi- 
tion to  the  demands  on  any  community  which  would  support 
them  in  efficiency  to  submit  to  the  sacrifices  involved  in  in- 
creasing the  number  of  their  teachers  and  in  providing  the 
more  abundant,  more  elaborate,  and  more  expensive  instru- 
ments and  appliances  of  investigation  requii-ed.  The  mental 
and  moral  sciences,  historical  and  social  studies,  and  the  various 
philosophical  disciplines,  are  also  becoming  inspired  with  a 
new  spirit,  new  energy,  new  hopes,  new  ambitions,  and  have 
manifestly  a  great  future  before  them.  It  is  a  future  in  the 
achievements  and  rewards  of  which  the  Universities  of  Scotland 
must  naturally  desire  to  share  in  a  measure  which  will  be  at 
least  not  unworthy  of  their  past.  But  if  their  desire  is  not 
to  be  an  illusion,  there  must  be  adequate  efforts  put  forth  to 
realise  it.  The  provision  made  in  our  Universities  for  teaching 
and  study  in  these  departments  of  knowledge  must  not  be  that 
merely  which  availed  in  the  past,  but  that  which  suits  the 
present  and  will  secure  progress  in  the  future. 

The  Faculty  of  Arts  has  to  reach  forth  unto  such  things  as 
securing  that  its  entrants  be  duly  prepared,  that  certain  great 
departments  of  thought  and  learning  cease  to  be  neglected,  that 
justice  to  the  various  studies  be  obtained  through  giving  free- 
dom in  the  choice  of  studies,  and  that  suflScient  provision  be 
made  for  furthering  high  special  attainments.  The  Faculty  of 
Medicine  has  before  it  the  simple  but  pressing  problem  of  the 
completion  of  the  new  buildings,  and  what  further  problem 
I  know  not,  save  how  to  go  on  prospering  as  it  has  been  doing. 
The  Faculties  of  Law  and  of  Theology  both  need  great  enlarge- 
ment, and  the  latter  perhaps  organic  changes.  This  city  itself 
has  within  it  the  materials  out  of  which,  if  wisely  used,  there 


A    UNIVERSITY   TERCENTENARY    SERMON-  9 

might  be  built  up,  within  the  University,  to  the  great  honour 
and  profit  of  the  nation,  a  magnificent  school  both  of  law  and 
of  theology.  Those  who  aim  at  this  for  the  Faculty  of  Law 
will  doubtless  press  forward  towards  it  with  a  hopeful  spirit 
as  to  a  thing  which  is  surely,  although  it  may  be  slowly, 
obtainable.  Those  who  aim  at  it  for  the  Faculty  of  Theology 
may  have  less  confidence  of  success,  knowing  that  sectarianism 
has  had  in  Scotland  many  a  sad  triumph  over  enlightened 
patriotism,  and  that  the  ecclesiastical  world  has  been  always 
peculiarly  slow  to  give  heed  to  the  word,  "  let  the  dead  bury 
their  dead ; "  but  they  can  at  least  strive  in  the  assured  faith 
that  they  are  on  the  side  of  freedom  and  of  science,  of  religious 
progress  and  the  public  good. 

In  reaching  forward  to  these  things,  and  to  all  others  which 
may  add  to  the  usefulness  of  the  University,  and  cause  it  better 
to  fulfil  the  ends  of  its  existence — in  pressing  on  to  them,  be 
it  as  members  or  as  friends,  as  operating  from  within  or  co- 
operating from  without — we  need  have  no  hesitation  in  doing 
so  as  called  of  God  to  the  work,  and  no  fear  that  in  yielding 
ourselves  heartily  to  this  or  to  any  calling  of  His  we  shall  fail 
to  gain  the  goal  of  life,  the  prize  of  His  approval  and  blessing. 
There  are  no  ways  by  which  the  University  can  be  benefited 
but  ways  by  which  God's  work  will  also  be  done  and  His  name 
glorified.  Nay,  more ;  all  our  work  in  the  University  or  in 
connection  with  it,  like  all  other  work  to  which  God  calls  us, 
is  work  to  which  He  calls  us  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  which  we 
may  perform  in  Christ  Jesus.  For  Paul  the  high  calling  of 
God  was  to  the  work  of  directly  preaching  the  Gospel ;  but 
that  is  by  no  means  the  calling  of  all  men,  nor  is  that  the 
work  by  which  all  men  may  do  most  for  the  advancement  of 
the  kingdom  of  Christ.  A  great  discoverer  in  science  may 
contribute,  by  the  light  which  he  throws  on  the  character  of 
God,  and  by  the  beneficial  effects  of  his  discoveries,  far  more 
to  the  establishment  and  growth  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ 
than  a  thousand  preachers.  It  is  a  grievous  pity  when  such 
a  man  does  not  koow  the  full  glory  of  his  own  work,  owing 
to  his  ignoring  its  relation  to  the  work  of  Christ.  All  good 
work  is  work  which  tends  to  the  advancement  of  Christ's  king- 
dom, and  which  should  be  done  in  Christ's  spirit.     Every  high 


10  A    UNIVERSITY    TERCENTENARY   SERMON. 

and  honourable  calling  is  in  Him,  and  the  blame  is  ours  if 
it  be  not  accepted  and  acted  on  in  Him. 

We  would  commemorate,  then,  the  past  of  the  University 
with  gratitude  to  God  for  His  goodness,  and  anticipate  its 
future  in  the  trust  that  that  goodness  will  be  abundantly  con- 
tinued. Its  past  is,  in  great  part,  not  dead,  but  yet  living  in 
us  and  living  for  us, — a  source  of  strength  in  the  present,  and 
a  ground  of  hope  for  the  future.  The  hearts  of  the  generous 
and  patriotic  turn  with  trust,  with  affection,  with  pride,  to 
old  things,  around  which,  while  meeting  the  newest  needs, 
noble  memories  and  dear  associations  cluster.  Look  around ; 
for  you  can  have  no  better  illustration  of  what  I  mean.  Not 
long  ago  there  could  have  been  no  assembly  here  like  that 
now  before  me,  so  grievously  marred  and  deformed  had  this 
venerable  edifice  been  allowed  to  become,  although  its  every 
stone  speaks,  and  its  every  pillar  is  wreathed  with  the  associa- 
tions of  centuries ;  but  these  stones  did  speak  to  the  spirit — 
these  pillars  did  touch  the  heart — of  one,  recently  removed 
from  among  us,  who  loved  well  the  old  things  of  his  country's 
history,  and  on  this  our  Tercentenary,  but  also  the  anniversary 
of  William  Chambers,  we  are  profiting  by  the  restoration  of 
old  St  Giles',  due  to  his  public  spirit  and  munificence.  May 
we  not  believe  that  it  will  not  be  otherwise  with  our  University  ? 
May  we  not  believe  that  in  the  time  to  come  there  will  be 
many  moved  by  the  remembrance  of  its  past  to  labour  in 
restoring  whatever  may  have  been  wrongly  allowed  to  lapse 
into  decay ;  in  improving  whatever  is  defective ;  in  enlarging, 
enriching,  and  beautifying,  materially  and  spiritually,  the 
edifice  which  through  three  hundred  years  our  fathers  have 
been  building  up,  but  which  still  admits  of  many  a  useful  and 
fair  addition,  of  many  a  strengthening  buttress,  of  many  a 
higher  storey,  of  many  a  hall  and  chamber,  of  many  a  chancel 
and  chapel,  of  many  a  pillar  and  turret  ?  May  it  be  so.  And 
since  the  God  who  has  blessed  our  University  in  the  past  can 
bless  it  still  and  evermore — since  He  it  is  who  was,  and  is,  and 
is  to  come — who  faileth  never,  and  betrayeth  never — let  us 
commit  its  interests  to  Him.  To  Him  also  let  us  commit  our 
own  interests,  our  own  selves,  our  own  souls.  And  to  His 
name  be  all  praise  and  glory,  now  and  for  ever.     Amen. 


II. 

CHRISTIAN    UNITY.i 

"Neither  pray  I  for  these  alone,  but  for  them  also  which  shall  believe  on  me 
through  their  word  ;  that  they  all  may  be  one  ;  as  Thou,  Father,  art  in  me, 
and  I  in  Thee,  that  they  also  may  be  one  in  us  :  that  the  world  may  believe 
that  Thou  hast  sent  me." — John  xvii.  20,  21. 

THESE  words  contain  truths  and  suggest  reflections  which 
are  manifestly  appropriate  in  the  circumstances  in  which 
we  are  met.  Any  remarks  which  may  help  you  to  enter  into  the 
spirit  and  meaning  of  them  cannot  be  otherwise  than  seasonable. 
Let  Christ  Himself,  therefore,  be  our  teacher ;  let  the  speaker 
merely  repeat  what  He  taught,  and  may  the  Holy  Spirit  guide 
both  speaker  and  hearers  to  a  right  understanding,  and  a  hearty 
reception  of  what  He  taught ;  and  may  the  truth  thus  under- 
stood and  received  be  profitable  unto  us  for  doctrine,  for  reproof, 
for  correction,  for  instruction  in  righteousness. 

The  circumstances  in  which  the  words  of  the  text  were  first 
spoken  could  not  have  been  more  fitted  than  they  were  deeply 
to  impress  the  truth  in  them  on  all  Christian  hearts  and 
consciences  throughout  all  lands  and  ages.  When  our  Lord 
breathed  them  forth  in  prayer  He  had  just  instituted  the 
ordinance  which  was  to  commemorate  until  He  came  again 
His  own  death.  He  had  immediately  before  his  view  the  cup 
which  His  Father  had  prepared  for  Him  to  drink,  the  agony 
of  Gethsemane,  the  sufferings  and  the  shame  of  Calvary ;  yet 
with  divine  unselfishness  His  thoughts  were  occupied  about 
others,  and  His  affections  were  going  forth  towards  others. 
He  was  doing  what  He  could  to  comfort,  to  encourage,  to 
enlighten  the  few  sorrowful,  perplexed,  disheartened  men  who 
were  beside  Him,  and  whom  He  was  so  soon  to  leave.  But 
His  care  and  His  love  were  not  confined  to  them,  or  to  the 

1  Preached  in  St  Giles'  Church,  Edinburgh,  July  3,  1877,  at  meeting  of  the 
First  General  Council  of  the  Presbyterian  Alliance. 


12  CHRISTIAN    UNITY. 

small  number  of  persons  scattered  through  Judea  who  had 
trusted  that  He  would  redeem  Israel,  and  whose  affections 
were  still  not  wholly  withdrawn  from  Him,  although  their 
hopes  were  overclouded  or  extinguished.  He  knew  that  the 
doubts  and  fears  of  His  disciples  were,  as  far  as  they  regarded 
Himself,  altogether  vain.  He  knew  whence  He  came  into 
the  world,  and  why  He  came — who  sent  Him,  and  for  what 
He  was  sent ;  that  His  work  was  one  which  could  not  fail ; 
that  the  Father  would  glorify  the  Son  that  the  Son  might 
glorify  the  Father ;  that  the  Father  had  given  Him  power 
over  all  flesh,  that  He  should  give  eternal  life  to  a  mighty 
people  to  be  gathered  out  of  all  the  nations  of  the  earth.  He 
knew  that  the  honour  of  God  and  the  salvation  of  men  were 
alike  dependent  on  the  success  of  what  He  had  undertaken. 
He  looked,  therefore,  beyond  the  apparent  defeats  and  passing 
sorrows  of  the  present,  and  beyond  the  sufferings  of  the  im- 
mediately impending  future,  and  He  saw  that  despised  Gospel 
which  He  was  about  to  seal  with  His  blood,  spreading  beyond 
Judea,  beyond  the  farthest  bounds  of  Roman  rule,  over  lands 
whose  names  His  contemporaries  knew  not.  He  saw  that  it 
was  to  outlive  empires,  the  foundations  of  which  had  not  then 
been  laid,  to  destroy  whatever  was  opposed  to  it,  to  pass 
through  the  strangest  vicissitudes  of  thought  as  gold  through 
the  fire,  and  to  diffuse  light  and  life  through  all  the  coming 
ages.  He  saw  it  gaining  to  God  and  to  Himself  the  countless 
multitudes  of  the  redeemed,  and  His  loving  heart  embraced 
them  all,  and  out  of  the  fulness  of  His  heart  He  prayed 
for  them  all,  and  His  prayer  was  "  that  they  all  might  be 
one." 

In  praying  thus  He  asked,  we  may  be  sure,  the  very  best 
thing  for  them  which  He  could.  He  had  already  on  this 
memorable  night  bequeathed  to  His  followers  His  great  gift 
of  peace ;  He  had  laid  on  them  His  new  commandment, 
"  Love  one  another " ;  and  now  He  asked  for  them  what  in- 
cluded both — that  unity  which  could  only  be  obtained  through 
obedience  to  His  law  of  love,  and  which  Avas  inseparable  from 
such  peace  as  He  had  to  bestow. 

But  that  we  may  know  the  worth  of  what  He  asked  on 
our  behalf,  we  must  know  what  it  really  was.     Its  nature  has 


CHRISTIAN    UNITY.  13 

often   been   grievously  misunderstood,   and  the  consequences 
have  been  most  lamentable. 

In  every  sphere  of  thought  and  life  there  is  a  serious  danger 
of  taking  a  false  unity  for  the  true.  The  aim  of  all  philosophy, 
for  example,  is  to  reach  a  true  intellectual  unity,  and  the  love 
of  unity  is  its  very  source  and  life ;  yet  it  has  also  been  the 
chief  cause  of  its  errors,  and  all  false  systems  of  speculation, 
like  materialism  and  idealism,  positivism  and  pantheism,  are 
simply  systems  based  on  false  unities,  on  narrow  and  exclusive 
unities.  There  is  a  unity  of  political  life  which  is  rich  in 
blessings ;  and  there  are  caricatures  of  that  unity  which  have 
only  originated  cruel  and  perfidious  acts,  foolish  and  unjust 
measures.  But  nowhere  have  erroneous  views  as  to  the 
nature  of  unity  been  so  mischievous  as  in  the  province  of 
religion.  In  the  name  of  Christian  unity  men  have  been 
asked  to  sacrifice  the  most  sacred  rights  of  reason,  conscience, 
and  affection.  Independence  of  judgment,  honesty,  brotherly 
love  itself,  and  every  quality  which  gives  to  human  nature 
worth  and  dignity,  have  been  treated  as  incompatible  with  it. 
In  former  days  it  was  thought  that  Christian  unity  could  be 
forced  upon  men  by  violent  and  bloody  hands ;  and  in  later 
times  it  has  often  been  supposed  that  it  could  be  promoted 
by  wrathful  words  and  the  arts  of  worldly  intrigue.  Through- 
out the  whole  duration  of  the  Church,  the  unity  which  our 
Saviour  prayed  that  His  followers  might  enjoy  has  been 
widely  confounded  with  kinds  of  unity  which  have  no  neces- 
sary connection  with  either  Christian  peace  or  love,  and  which 
may  be,  and  often  have  been,  the  occasions  of  most  unchristian 
discord  and  hatred. 

What,  then,  is  the  unity  which  Christ  prayed  for  when  He 
asked  on  behalf  of  His  followers  "that  they  all  might  be 
one  "  ?  Well,  this  at  least  it  certainly  is — a  unity  of  super- 
natural origin.  It  has  its  foundation  not  on  earth  but  in 
heaven,  not  in  man  but  in  God.  It  is  not  of  this  world  nor 
of  the  will  of  the  flesh ;  it  is  not  a  mere  expression  of  the 
likeness  of  human  nature  in  all  men ;  it  has  its  root  and 
source  in  the  eternal  nature  of  God — in  the  infinite  love 
wherewith  He  loved  us  before  the  world  was.  It  supposes 
a  reception  of  the  word  or  docrine  of  the  apostles  regarding 


14  CHRISTIAN    UNITY. 

Christ,  and,  consequently,  faith  in  Christ  Himself,  as  the 
God-man,  the  brightness  of  the  glory  and  the  express  image 
of  the  person  of  the  Father.  It  is  the  natural  and  necessary 
expression  of  the  common  relationship  of  believing  men  to 
the  one  God — the  one  Saviour — and  the  one  Spirit.  There 
is  one  faith,  one  baptism,  one  hope  on  earth,  because  there  is 
one  Father,  one  Eedeemer,  one  Sanctifier  in  heaven.  Unity 
on  earth  below  is  the  result  of  a  unifying  work  accomplished 
by  God  who  is  in  heaven  above,  through  redemption  in  Jesus 
Christ.  Sin  produced  disunion.  It  separated  men  from  God 
and  men  from  one  another.  Christ  came  to  undo  the  work 
of  sin,  and  to  bind  together  more  firmly  than  ever  what  it 
had  torn  asunder.  Through  faith  believers  are  made  one 
with  Him  ;  through  His  sacrifice  they  are  made  one  with  the 
Father;  through  being  in  the  Father  and  the  Son  they  are 
one  among  themselves — one  in  faith  and  feeling,  in  spirit 
and  life — in  their  principles  and  their  sympathies,  in  their 
affections  and  aspirations. 

Such,  whatever  else  it  may  be,  is  Christian  unity.  But 
this  of  itself  is  sufficient  to  separate  it  by  a  broad  and  clear 
boundary,  yea,  by  an  enormous  chasm,  from  a  unity  which  in 
the  present  day  is  frequently  set  forth  in  opposition  to  it — 
the  unity  proclaimed  and  glorified  by  Positivists,  Humani- 
tarians, and  Socialists — the  unity  of  mere  human  brotherhood. 
This  is  a  comparatively  new  enemy  of  the  faith.  It  may  be 
said  to  have  entered  into  general  history  with  the  French 
Eevolution ;  it  owes  its  very  existence  to  the  Christianity 
which  it  is  set  up  to  rival.  But  the  signs  of  the  times  seem 
clearly  to  indicate  that,  under  some  form  or  another,  or  rather 
that  under  many  forms,  what  has  been  called  the  religion  of 
humanity — which  is  just  the  belief  in  the  brotherhood  of  men 
separated  from  belief  in  the  fatherhood  of  God,  fraternity 
divorced  from  piety,  unity  detached  from  its  supernatural 
root — will  be  one  of  the  chief  enemies  which  Christianity  must 
contend  with.  Merely  ecclesiastical  questions  will  probably 
have  far  less,  and  social  questions  far  more,  importance 
assigned  to  them  in  the  estimation  of  Christian  men  in  the 
future  than  they  have  had  in  the  past,  and  all  Christian 
Churches,   it  is  to    be    hoped,   will    henceforth    realise    better 


CHRISTIAN    UNITY.  15 

than  they  have  hitherto  done  that  their  duty  is  to  conquer 
the  world  around  them,  and  transform  it  into  a  part  of  the 
kingdom  of  Christ — to  sanctify  society,  and  to  stamp  the 
image  of  the  Redeemer  on  all  the  relations  of  life.  But  in 
attempting  to  accomplish  this  task.  Christian  belief  will 
assuredly  be  resisted  by  worldly  unbelief,  and  yet  in  such  a 
struggle,  the  foe  of  Christianity,  to  have  any  chance  of 
success,  must  be  neither  wholly  worldly  nor  wholly  unbeliev- 
ing ;  it  must  have  some  positive  truth,  some  generous  faith, 
some  cause  capable  of  eliciting  enthusiasm.  The  world  will 
not  be  conquered — not  generally  influenced  and  governed — 
by  mere  doubts,  mere  negations.  But  where  is  unbelief  to 
get  a  truth,  a  faith,  a  motive  which  will  serve  its  purpose  ? 
I  answer  that  unbelief,  although  so  fertile  in  doubts  and 
negations,  is  so  poor  as  regards  the  positive  truth  which  can 
alone  support  and  ennoble  life,  that  it  must  borrow  it  from  the 
very  system  which  it  seeks  to  combat,  and  that  it  can  have  no 
other  originality  than  that  which  it  gains  by  mutilating  the 
truth  which  it  borrows.  To  the  Fatherhood  of  God  and  the 
Brotherhood  of  Man,  it  will  oppose  the  latter  alone — to 
Christian  unity  what  it  will  call  a  broader,  but  what  is  really  a 
narrower  thing,  a  merely  human  unity — to  the  whole  truth, 
the  half  truth.  And  for  many  a  long  day  Christian  men  and 
Christian  Churches  will  have  no  more  urgent  work  to  do  than 
to  show  by  words  and  deeds,  by  teaching  and  conduct,  what 
is  the  whole  truth  and  what  is  only  the  half  truth ;  that  the 
temple  of  human  brotherhood  can  only  be  solidly  founded 
and  firmly  built  up  on  the  Eternal  Rock  on  which  rests 
Christian  faith ;  that  the  world  can  only  be  reconciled  to 
itself  by  being  reconciled  to  its  God ;  that  human  unity  can 
only  be  realised  in  and  through  Christian  unity. 

The  unity  which  Christ  asked  for  His  disciples  is,  I  remark 
next,  a  unity  which  has  not  only  its  foundation,  but  its 
standard  or  model,  in  heaven.  His  prayer  is  not  only  that 
His  people  may  be  one ;  but  that  "  as  Thou,  Father,  art  in  Me, 
and  I  in  Thee,  they  also  may  be  one  in  us."  The  union  of 
believers  not  only  flows  from  the  union  between  the  Father 
and  the  Son,  who  is  the  Mediator  between  the  Father  and 
us,  but  should  resemble  it  as  much  as  the  relationship  between 


16  CHRISTIAN    UNITY. 

finite  beings  can  resemble  that  between  infinite  beings.  The 
unity  which  Christ  came  to  realise  on  earth  was  one  meant 
to  reflect  and  ex|3ress  in  a  finite  form  the  perfect  unity  of  the 
Divine  Nature.  That  unity,  as  Christianity  has  revealed  it, 
is  very  diflterent  from  the  mere  abstract  unity  of  speculative 
philosophy — the  wholly  indeterminate  unity  of  which  nothing 
can  be  afiirmed  except  that  it  exists ;  very  different  also 
from  the  solitary,  loveless,  heartless  unity  of  the  God  of 
Mahommedanism.  It  is  a  unity  rich  in  distinctions  and  per- 
fections ;  the  unity  of  an  infinite  fulness  of  life  and  love ;  the 
unity  of  a  Grodhead  in  which  there  are  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Spirit,  a  trinity  of  persons,  a  diversity  of  properties,  a  variety 
of  offices,  a  multiplicity  of  operations,  yet  not  only  sameness 
of  nature  and  equality  of  power  and  glory,  but  perfect  oneness 
also  in  purpose,  counsel,  and  affection,  perfect  harmony  of 
will  and  work.  It  is  in  this  unity,  in  the  contemplation  and 
fruition  of  which  poets  like  Dante,  saints  like  Saint  Bernard, 
and  divines  like  Melancthon,  have  supposed  the  highest  happi- 
ness of  the  blessed  to  consist,  that  we  are  to  seek  the  archetype 
of  the  unity  of  believers  on  earth. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  marked  and  one  of  the  grandest 
characteristics  of  Christianity,  that  it  continually  sets  before 
us  the  heavenly,  the  divine,  the  perfect,  as  the  law  and  rule 
of  our  lives.  As  Moses  was  commanded  to  make  the  tabernacle 
for  the  children  of  Israel  in  all  things  according  to  the  pattern 
shown  him  in  the  Mount,  so,  it  has  been  truly  said,  is  the  Christian 
commanded  to  frame  his  conduct  in  every  respect  according  to 
the  perfect  model  of  heaven.  To  be  perfect,  as  God  is  perfect ; 
to  do  our  Father's  will  on  earth,  as  it  is  done  in  heaven ;  to 
love  one  another,  as  Christ  has  loved  us ;  that  is  the  uniform 
tenor  of  the  teaching  which  we  receive  from  the  Gospel ;  and 
so  here  our  Saviour's  words  remind  us  that  we  are  to  be  one 
as  the  Father  and  the  Son  are  one.  If,  as  those  who  would 
found  a  mere  human  brotherhood  dream,  heaven  were  empty 
or  wholly  inaccessible  to  our  faith — if  there  were  no  Father 
and  no  Son,  or,  at  least,  none  to  be  known  by  us — if  there 
were  not  in  the  Godhead  itself  an  intimate  indwelling  of 
person  in  person,  a  perfect  communion  of  spirit  with  spirit, 
an  infinite  love,  all-comprehensive,  all-persuasive,  all-unitive — 


CHRISTIAN    UNITY.  17 

would  there  be  any  real  and  adequate  standard  assignable 
to  the  unity  of  men  with  men,  to  the  love  of  man  for  man? 
When  one  who  disbelieves  in  God  and  His  Son  tells  liis 
fellow-men  to  be  one,  can  he  also  reasonably  and  consistently 
tell  them  in  what  measure  or  according  to  what  model  they 
are  to  be  one  ?  No.  He  can  find  no  rule  in  the  history  of 
the  past,  stained  as  that  has  been  with  hatreds  and  dissensions. 
He  must  not  be  content  with  merely  pointing  to  good  men, 
for  clearly  the  best  human  lives  have  been  very  defective,  and 
in  many  respects  warnings  rather  than  examples.  If  he  say, 
"love  and  be  at  one  as  far  as  is  for  the  greatest  good  of  all," 
he  gives  us  a  problem  to  calculate  instead  of  an  ideal  which 
can  at  once  elicit  and  measure,  which  can  at  once  sustain  and 
regulate  love  and  unity.  If  he  say,  "  love  and  be  at  one  as 
you  ought,"  he  forgets  that  the  very  question  is.  How  ought 
we  to  love  and  be  at  one  ?  Human  unity  is  a  derived  and 
dependent  unity,  and  its  standard  can  only  be  the  ultimate 
and  uncreated  source  of  unity — in  the  indwelling  of  the  Father 
in  the  Son,  and  of  the  Son  in  the  Father. 

The  words  of  our  Lord,  I  remark  next,  indicate  to  us  not 
only  the  true  foundation  and  the  true  standard,  but  also  the 
true  nature  of  the  unity  which  He  prayed  for.  What  He 
asked  was  that  all  His  followers  might  be  "one  in  Us,"  one 
in  the  Father  and  in  Himself — one  in  the  Father  through 
belief  in  Himself,  which  can  only  mean  that  what  He  desired 
was  that  His  followers  might  all  possess  a  common  life — 
might  all  participate  in  the  mind  which  was  in  Him — might 
all  walk  not  by  sight  but  by  faith,  not  after  the  flesh,  but 
according  to  the  Spirit — and  might  all  consciously  feel  and 
outwardly  manifest  that  they  were  thus  really  one.  This  is, 
of  course,  a  kind  of  unity  which  embraces  all  Christ's  followers 
without  any  exception.  The  Church  of  Christ,  which  is  the 
body  of  Christ,  contains  every  human  being  of  whatever  kind, 
or  tongue,  or  nation  who  has  that  life  which  is  not  of  this 
world,  but  hid  with  Christ  in  God,  and  it  contains  only  those 
who  have  it.  Therefore  the  Church — the  body  of  Christ — is 
one.  It  is  one  in  itself,  because  one  in  its  Lord ;  one  in  its 
many  members,  because  these  members  are  all  united  to  Him 
who  is  the  head  of  the  Church — the  sole  head  of  the  Church. 

B 


18  CHRISTIAN    UNITY. 

The  headship  of  Christ  and  the  unity  of  the  Church  are  two 
aspects  of  the  same  truth.  Christ  is  the  head  of  the  Church 
because  He  is  the  Hfe  of  all,  the  guide  of  all,  and  the  Lord 
of  all  who  are  within  the  Church ;  their  life  through  the 
agency  of  His  Holy  Spirit,  their  guide  through  the  instru- 
mentality of  His  Word,  and  their  Lord  through  the  redemp- 
tion of  them  from  sin  to  His  own  blessed  service.  And  just 
because  Christ  is  thus  the  sole  head  of  the  Church,  in  the  plain 
Scriptural  sense  of  the  great  doctrine,  the  Church  itself  is 
one.  Without  Him  it  would  have  no  centre  of  unity,  no 
coherence  of  parts,  no  sameness  of  life,  no  harmony  of  senti- 
ments, no  commonness  of  purpose,  while  in  Him  it  has  all 
these. 

Has  them,  I  say,  and  not  merely  will  have  them.  The  unity 
of  the  Church  is  not  simply  a  thing  to  be  hoped  for,  prayed 
for,  worked  for ;  it  is  also  a  thing  which  already  exists,  and 
the  existence  of  which  ought  to  be  felt  and  acted  on.  Chris- 
tians are  certainly  far,  far  indeed,  from  being  one,  as  Christ 
prayed  that  they  might  be  one — completely  one — one  as  He 
and  the  Father  are  one  ;  they  are  far  from  that,  because  they 
are  far  from  being  perfect  Christians ;  but  in  so  far  as  they  are 
Christians  at  all,  they  even  are  to  that  extent  already  one.  To 
be  a  Christian  is  to  be — through  change  of  nature — through 
newness  of  life — one  with  all  other  Christians.  Now,  I  know 
scarcely  any  truth  about  Christianity  which  we  are  more  apt  to 
forget,  and  which  we  more  need  to  remember  than  just  this, 
that  Christian  unity  already  exists  as  far  as  Christianity  itself 
does ;  that  we  do  not  need  to  bring  it  into  existence,  but  that 
Christ  Himself  by  His  work  and  spirit  brought  it  into  existence ; 
that  any  unity  which  we  are  entitled  to  look  for  in  the  picture 
must  be  merely  a  development,  an  increase  of  that  which 
already  binds  together  Christian  men  of  all  denominations — 
not  a  something  of  an  essentially  different  nature. 

The  great  duty  of  Christians  in  this  matter,  some  seem  to  think, 
is  to  ignore  their  differences,  to  conceal  them,  or  to  get  rid  of 
them  anyhow ;  they  appear  to  find  it  difficult  to  understand  how 
there  can  be  a  unity  co-existing  with  and  underlying  differ- 
ences, and  wholly  distinct  from  the  uniformity  which  can  only 
be  gained  by  the  surrender  or  suppression  of  differences.     This 


CHRISTIAN   UNITY.  19 

is  a  very  superficial  view,  for  it  represents  Christian  unity  not 
as  a  living  and  spiritual  thing  at  all,  but  as  a  mere  dead 
outward  form  of  doctrine  or  policy ;  it  is  also  a  very  dangerous 
view,  for  it  tends  directly  to  the  establishment  of  ecclesiastical 
despotism,  the  discouragement  of  the  open  expression  of  indi- 
vidual convictions,  and  the  destruction  of  faith  in  the  sacred- 
ness  and  value  of  truth.  To  me  it  seems  that  the  chief  aim 
and  desire  of  Christians  as  to  unity  ought  to  be  to  realise  their 
oneness  notwithstanding  their  differences ;  to  estimate  at  its 
true  worth  what  is  common  to  them  as  well  as  what  is  de- 
nominationally distinctive  of  them. 

Christian  unity  does  not  require  us  to  undervalue  any  par- 
ticular truth,  or  to  surrender  any  denominational  principle,  or 
even  individual  conviction,  which  is  well  founded  ;  it  merely 
requires  that  our  minds  and  hearts  be  open  also  to  what  is 
common,  catholic,  universal ;  that  we  do  not  allow  our  deno- 
minational differences  and  individual  peculiarities  to  prevent 
us  from  tracing  and  admiring  the  operations  of  the  spirit  of 
grace  through  the  most  dissimilar  channels.  There  may  be 
Christian  oneness  where  there  are  also  differences  which  no 
man  can  rationally  count  of  slight  moment.  The  differences 
between  Protestants  and  Eoman  Catholics  are  of  the  most 
serious  kind,  religiously,  morally,  and  socially,  yet  obviously 
the  feelings  to  which  St.  Bernard  gave  expression  in  the  hymn, 
"Jesus,  thou  joy  of  loving  hearts,"  and  those  which  Charles 
Wesley  poured  forth  in  the  hymn,  "Jesus,  lover  of  my  soul," 
had  their  source  in  the  same  Holy  Spirit,  and  their  object  in 
the  same  divine  Saviour.  There  is  a  great  distance,  and  there 
are  many  differences,  between  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  of 
France  and  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland,  but  Fenelon  and 
M'Cheyne  were  of  one  Church  and  one  in  their  spiritual  experi- 
ence. Saint  Bernard  and  Pope  Alexander  VI.,  Fenelon  and 
Cardinal  Dubois,  were  united  in  the  Church  of  Rome — who 
will  dare  to  say  that  they  were  one  in  Jesus  Christ  ?  Saint 
Bernard  and  Charles  Wesley,  Fenelon  and  M'Cheyne,  were  eccle- 
siastically far  apart — who  will  dare  to  say  that  they  were  7iot 
one  in  Jesus  Christ  ?  I  trust  that  Protestants  will  never  think 
slight  the  differences  which  separate  them  from  the  Church  of 
Rome ;  and  yet  I  hesitate  not  to  say  that  when  Protestants  in 


20  CHRISTIAN    UNITY. 

general  are  clearly  able  to  discern  the  oneness  even  beneath 
these  differences,  and  cordially  to  love  whatever  is  of  Christ 
and  His  Holy  Spirit,  even  when  it  appears  in  the  Church  of 
Rome,  a  greater  step  will  have  been  taken  towards  the  attain- 
ment of  Christian  unity  than  would  be  the  mere  external  union 
of  all  the  denominations  of  Protestantism. 

As  to  the  differences  between  these  denominations,  they 
might  surely  exist  and  yet  prove  merely  the  means  of  exer- 
cising and  strengthening  Christian  unity.  If  we  can  only  be 
at  one  in  spirit  with  those  who  agree  with  us  in  opinion, 
there  can  be  little  depth  or  sincerity  in  such  oneness.  The 
love  which  vanishes  before  a  difference  of  views  and  sentiments 
must  be  of  a  very  superficial  and  worthless  nature.  And,  as 
a  plain  matter  of  fact,  it  is  neither  merely  nor  mainly  the 
differences  of  principle  or  opinion  between  the  various  deno- 
minations of  Christians  which  mar  and  violate  their  Christian 
unity,  but  the  evil  and  unchristian  passions  which  gather 
round  these  differences.  The  differences  are  only  the  occasions 
of  calling  forth  these  passions.  If  they  did  not  exist  at  all, 
the  same  passions  would  create  or  find  other  differences,  other 
occasions  for  displaying  themselves.  It  is  not  when  one  body 
of  men  holds  honestly,  openly,  and  firmly  the  Voluntary  prin- 
ciple, and  another  the  Establishment  principle,  that  Christian 
unity  is  broken,  but  when  those  who  hold  the  one  principle 
insinuate  that  those  who  hold  the  other  are,  simply  in  virtue 
of  doing  so,  ungodly  men,  or  men  who  disown  Christ  as  the 
life  and  guide,  the  Lord  and  Head  of  His  people.  It  is  when, 
instead  of  cordially  acknowledging  and  rejoicing  in  what  is 
good  in  each  other,  each  exaggerates  what  is  good  in  itself, 
and  depreciates  what  is  good  in  the  other,  or  even  rejoices 
in  its  neighbour's  humiliation  or  injury ;  and  when  those  who 
represent  them  contend,  by  speech  or  writing,  in  a  manner 
from  which  a  courteous  and  honest  man  of  the  world  would 
recoil ;  it  is  then  that  Christian  unity  is  broken — visibly, 
terribly  broken — for  then  the  Christian  spirit  itself  is  mani- 
festly absent,  or  grievously  feeble. 

All  the  differences  of  principle  which  separate  most  at  least 
of  our  Christian  denominations  might  redound  to  their  common 
honour,  and  reveal  rather  than  conceal  their  common  unity,  had 


CHRISTIAN    UNITY.  21 

their  members  and  spokesmen  only  a  little  more  justice,  gener- 
osity, and  love — a  little  more  grace  and  virtue — a  little  more  of 
the  spirit  of  that  kingdom  which  is  righteousness,  and  peace, 
and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost.  They  might  set  a  high  value  on 
their  distinctive  principles,  and  yet  rejoice  that  what  they  held 
apart  was  so  small  a  portion  of  the  truth  in  comparison  with 
what  they  enjoyed  in  common.  It  may,  perhaps,  be  quite 
reasonable  that  for  the  sake  of  one  principle  as  to  which  they 
difiEer  two  denominations  shall  stand  apart,  although  on  a 
thousand  other  principles  they  are  agreed;  but  it  cannot  be 
reasonable  that  their  divergence  of  views  as  to  the  one  principle 
should  shut  their  eyes  and  hearts  to  the  fact  that  as  to  the 
thousand  others  they  are  agreed.  And  yet  there  is,  as  all 
experience  proves,  a  very  great  danger  of  thus  allowing  dis- 
tinctive principles  to  obscure  or  prevent  our  recognition  of 
common  principles.  It  is  the  penalty  attached  to  all  undue 
exaltation  or  glorifying  of  what  distinguishes  us  from  our 
Christian  brethren.  And  met  as  we  are  as  a  General  Presby- 
terian Council,  I  hope  we  shall  be  on  our  guard  against  such  a 
danger.  God  forbid  that  the  Presbyterian  Churches  of  the 
world  should  have  so  little  received  the  spirit  or  learned  the 
law  of  Christ  as  that  they  should  in  any  degree  confound  Pres- 
byterian unity  with  Christian  unity — or  vainly  boast  of  what 
is  but  an  outward  form — or  say  or  do  anything  to  hurt  the 
feelings  or  the  usefulness  of  other  Churches  which  are  as  dear 
to  the  Saviour  as  themselves,  and  which  are  separated  from 
them  by  so  thin  a  partition  wall  as  a  mode  of  ecclesiastical 
government.  We  have  come  together  as  Presbyterians,  but 
with  the  wish  to  promote  Christian  unity ;  and  the  very  thought 
of  Christian  unity,  if  apprehended  aright,  must  save  us  from 
unduly  and  offensively  magnifying  any  secondary  unity,  any 
outward  distinction. 

Christian  unity  we  have  seen  to  be  a  spiritual  unity  which 
links  together  all  Christians  and  underlies  all  the  differences 
which  distinguish  them  from  one  another.  It  is  a  natural  and 
necessary  consequence  of  this  truth  that  Christian  unity, 
although  it  may  lean  to  such  secondary  unities  as  identity  of 
doctrine,  or  uniformity  of  ritual,  or  oneness  of  government, 
ought  never  to  be  identified  with  them.     Christian  unity  may 


22  CHRISTIAN    UNITY. 

be  where  there  are  none  of  these  things.  It  might  not  be 
where  they  all  were.  Take  doctrine.  Christian  unity  un- 
doubtedly involves  in  its  very  essence  a  oneness  of  faith,  for 
the  Christian  life  is  one  of  confidence  towards  God  as  a  re- 
conciled Father  in  Jesus  Christ — a  confidence  which  is  gained 
through  belief  in  Jesus  Christ,  while  that  belief  is  gained 
through  assent  to  what  Scripture  testifies  of  Jesus  Christ. 
This  unity  of  a  living  faith  naturally  finds  expression  in  a  unity 
of  doctrine  or  creed.  God  and  Christ  are  one,  and  the  testimony 
of  Scripture  regarding  Him  is  a  self -consistent  whole,  and  the 
longer,  the  more  impartially,  the  more  freely  and  honestly,  the 
more  reverently  and  profoundly  that  testimony  is  studied,  the 
more  likely,  or,  if  you  will,  the  more  certainly,  is  unity  even  of 
doctrine  to  be  the  result.  And  it  has  been  the  result.  The 
harmony  of  the  creeds  and  confessions,  not  of  Presbyterianism 
alone,  nor  even  of  Protestantism  alone,  but  of  the  whole  Chris- 
tian world,  is  most  comprehensive,  while  the  harmony  of  the 
chief  Protestant  creeds  and  confessions  is,  of  course,  far  more 
so ;  it  shows  us  a  unity  of  doctrine,  surely,  abundantly  sufficient 
for  almost  every  want  of  practical  Christian  life.  One  would 
call  this  unity  or  harmony  of  creed  remarkable,  were  it  not  that 
obviously  no  very  different  system  of  the  doctrines  could  be 
evolved  out  of  the  Scriptures  by  the  collective  labours  of  large 
masses  of  men  one  in  spirit  than  that  which  has  been  derived 
from  them  and  embodied  in  the  creeds  of  Churches. 

But  while  all  this  is  true,  and  Christian  unity  thus  naturally 
tends  to  produce  a  doctrinal  unity,  we  must  never  confound 
these  two  things.  A  man  may  err  very  widely  in  creed,  and 
yet  have  a  sincere  believing  soul.  He  may  greatly  misunder- 
stand many  an  instruction  of  his  Lord  and  Master,  and  yet 
reverence^Him  far  more,  and  love  Him  far  better — and  there- 
fore, since  love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law,  much  more  truly 
obey  His  will — than  a  wiser  and  more  instructed  brother,  whose 
exegesis  of  the  New  Testament  is  perfect.  A  Church  might 
have  a  faultless  creed,  to  which  all  its  members  unhesitatingly 
assent,  and  yet  be  devoid  of  Christian  unity  because  devoid  of 
the  Christian  faith,  of  spiritual  life.  Mere  orthodoxy  is  deadly 
heresy.  The  purely  intellectual  unity  reached  through  its 
purely  intellectual  assent  is  no  operation  of  the  spirit,  but 


CHRISTIAN    UNITY.  23 

where  the  spirit  is  not,  life  is  not ;  and  where  life  is  not,  death 
is.     Life,  however,  is  unity,  and  death  is  dissolution. 

Besides,  while  Christian  unity  tends  to  doctrinal  unity,  there 
may  never  on  earth  be  doctrinal  identity.     Whenever  there  is 
mental  activity — free,  honest,  independent  inquiry,  such  as  there 
is  whenever  there  is  either  intellectual  or  spiritual  life — research 
is  ever  advancing ;  and  the  first  results  of  advancing  research 
into  the  meaning  of  either  God's  book  of  nature  or  His  book 
of  revelation  are  always  discordant  and  unsatisfactory.     There 
are   conflicting   opinions    entertained    on  many  questions    re- 
garding heat,  light,  and  electricity ;  there  are  rival  schools  in 
geology  and  natural  history ;  there  is  hardly  a  single  subject 
in  mental,  moral,  or  political  science  about  which  there  is  not 
the  greatest  possible  diversity  of  opinion.     In  all  these  cases, 
however,  the  continuance  of  free  research  will  bring  order  ov.t 
of  chaos,  harmony  out  of  confusion,  yet  will  the  perfect  order 
and  harmony  of  nature  be  discovered  and  demonstrated  only 
when  science  has  fully  comprehended  nature,  and  there  is  no 
room  left  for  fresh  research.     It  is  not  otherwise  with  regard 
to  revelation.     We   can   only  have    an    absolute    harmony  of 
opinion  as  to  the  Bible  when  there  are  no  more  new  truths  to 
be  derived  from  it,  or  new  questions  raised  concerning  it,  when 
its  interpretation  is  perfected,  and  research  regarding  it  com- 
pleted.    That  will  not  be,  I  believe,  before  the  day  of  doom. 
Certainly  it  will   not  be  in   our  day,  for  never  was  Biblical 
research  more  actively  pushed  forward  in  all  directions  than 
just  now.     Never,  therefore,  were  the  Churches  more  bound, 
while  conscientiously  guarding  old  and  assured  truths,  to  be- 
ware of  dogmatism   as  to  new  views,  or  of  trammelling  un- 
necessarily advancing  research.     The  free  action  of  spiritual 
life  in  the  form  of  investigation  and  criticism  when  displayed 
in  fields  hitherto  little  trodden,  and  in  questions  hitherto  little 
studied  by  us,  may  apparently  produce,  or  really  produce,  for  a 
season,  only  contradictory  and  destructive  theories,  yet  in  God's 
good  time  it  will  assuredly  bring  about  unity  and  peace,  and 
minister  to  faith  and  virtue,  as  it  has  done  in  fields  already 
traversed  and  as  to  questions  now  settled. 

Perhaps   Christian   unity  —  unity  of  spirit  —  also  tends  to 
ritualistic    uniformity  or   uniformity   of  worship.      There  are 


24  CHRISTIAN    UNITY. 

two  grounds  on  either  or  both  of  which  this  may  be  main- 
tained. It  may  be  argued  that  there  is  a  divinely  appointed 
form  of  worship  defined  in  the  New  Testament  with  sufficient 
distinctness,  and  that  Christian  men  will  sooner  or  later  be  all 
convinced  of  this,  and  will,  of  course,  adopt  that  form  of  wor- 
ship. It  may  also  be  argued  that  there  is  an  absolutely  best 
form  of  worship,  and  that  when  the  spiritual  life  of  the  Church 
is  sufficiently  deepened  and  quickened  it  must  assume  that 
form  as  alone  fully  appropriate.  And  these  two  arguments 
may  be  combined ;  indeed,  if  there  is  a  divinely-appointed 
form  of  worship  it  can  scarcely  be  other  than  the  absolutely 
best  form  of  worship — the  one  most  suitable  in  all  lands,  ages, 
and  circumstances. 

I  have  neither  the  time  nor  the  desire  to  examine  either  of 
these  arguments,  but  certainly  I  am  unconvinced  by  either 
of  them.  I  cannot  see  that  there  is  one  exclusively  divine 
form  of  worship  prescribed  by  Scripture  and  binding  in  all  its 
regulations  on  men  in  all  places  and  at  all  times,  or  that  there 
is  one  absolutely  best  form  of  worship,  identical  and  unvarying, 
no  matter  what  may  have  been  the  history,  or  what  may  be 
the  characters  and  circumstances  of  the  worshippers.  Hence, 
although  I  can  hardly  doubt  that  the  more  enlightened  and 
earnest  our  piety  becomes,  the  less  value  will  it  attach  to  acces- 
sories and  imposing  forms,  the  more  suspicious  will  it  grow  of 
what  is  symbolical  and  artificial,  and  the  higher  will  be  its 
appreciation  of  those  forms  of  worship  which,  with  the  greatest 
simplicity,  naturalness,  and  directness,  bring  the  soul  into 
contact  with  the  realities  of  worship,  yet  I  can  feel  no  certainty 
that  there  would  be  uniformity  of  worship  even  if  there  were 
perfect  unity  of  spirit.  I  will  therefore  judge  no  man's  worship  by 
my  own  ideal  of  the  form  of  worship.  To  his  own  master  each 
man  standeth  or  falleth.  The  unity  of  worship  which  is  all 
important,  is  not  in  its  form  at  all,  but  in  its  being  in  spirit  and 
in  truth.  The  form  is  entirely  subordinate  to  the  spirit.  The 
true  spirit  is  restricted  to  no  one  form,  for  the  Holy  Ghost  has 
condescended  to  bless  and  to  act  through  the  most  diverse 
forms.  Therefore,  let  us  not  rashly  pronounce  any  of  them 
common  or  unclean. 

Kitualistic  uniformity,  then,  is  not  only  not  to  be  identified 


CHRISTIAN    UNITY.  25 

with  Christian  unity,  but  probably  not  even  to  be  included  in 
the  idea  of  Christian  unity.  The  same  must  be  said  of  one- 
ness of  ecclesiastical  government  or  polity.  Yet  nothing  can 
be  more  manifest  than  that  within  certain  limits  and  conditions 
Christian  unity  must  work  very  powerfully  towards  ecclesias- 
tical oneness  —  towards  the  union  of  Churches.  The  main 
reason  why  not  a  few  Churches  stand  apart  is  unhappily  to 
be  sought  and  found  not  in  their  principles,  but  in  their 
passions.  Jealousies,  rivalries,  recriminations,  assaults  upon 
one  another,  most  unseemly  and  improper  in  themselves, 
and  most  injurious  to  the  Christian  cause,  are  exhibited,  in- 
stead of  Christian  graces  or  practices.  The  strength  and 
energy  which  should  have  been  applied  to  the  conversion  and 
sanctification  of  the  world  are  far  more  than  wasted  in  warring 
with  one  another,  in  "biting  and  devouring  one  another."  All 
this  is,  of  course,  the  very  opposite  of  Christian  unity,  and 
must  disappear  in  order  that  Christian  unity  may  establish  and 
display  itself.  Wherever  there  is  a  real  growth  of  religious  life, 
there  a  sense  of  the  sinfulness  of  such  a  state  of  things,  and 
of  the  evil  which  it  causes,  must  spring  up,  and  the  desire  for 
brotherly  communion  and  co-operation  be  experienced.  The 
spirit  of  love  and  peace,  of  zeal  for  the  glory  of  God  and  the 
salvation  of  man,  working  from  within,  cannot  fail  gradually 
to  effect  many  an  ecclesiastical  alliance  and  union,  and  in  all 
such  cases  there  will  be  a  clear  gain  to  Christianity.  There 
may  be  unions,  however,  which  have  no  root  in  Christian 
unity,  which  are  prompted  by  worldly  motives,  and  effected 
from  without.  These  merit  no  admiration,  and  are  not  likely 
to  promote  much  the  progress  of  the  Kingdom  of  Christ.  A 
true  union  between  Churches  must  be  rather  grown  into  than 
directly  striven  for.  Just  as  he  who  would  be  happy  must  not 
aim  straight  at  happiness,  but  cultivate  piety  and  virtue,  so 
Churches  which  seek  such  a  union  as  God  will  bless  will  only 
reach  their  goal  by  increasing  in  love  to  God  and  to  all 
mankind. 

I  do  not  know  that  we  are  Avarranted  to  affirm  with  con- 
fidence much  beyond  this  as  to  ecclesiastical  union.  There 
are  not  a  few  who  hold  that  the  Church,  as  the  body  of  Christ, 
must  become  externally,  visibly,  organically  one.     This  is  the 


26  CHRISTIAN    UNITY. 

sort  of  unity  which  the  Church  of  Rome  has  ever  maintained 
to  be  an  essential  characteristic  of  the  true  Church.  Thus  to 
be  one  is  the  ideal  which  she  has  so  steadily  striven  to  realise ; 
and  the  ambition  of  attaining  that  ideal  has  been  the  inspiiing 
cause  of  most  of  her  crimes.  It  is  a  unity,  I  am  persuaded, 
which  would  be  pernicious  if  it  could  be  attained,  but  which 
fortunately  cannot  be  attained ;  an  ideal  which  is  a  dream — a 
grandiose  dream — and  also  a  diseased  dream  ;  an  ambition 
.which  is  foolish,  if  not  guilty.  The  notion  of  a  universal 
Church  in  this  sense  is  precisely  the  same  delusion  in  religion 
as  the  notion  of  a  universal  monarchy  or  a  universal  republic 
in  politics,  and,  in  fact,  implies  that  that  Utopia  is  a  truth 
which  can  be,  and  will  be,  realised.  Human  hands  are  utterly 
incompetent  to  hold  and  guide  aright  the  reins  of  universal 
sway  either  in  religious  or  civil  matters.  A  universal  Church 
would  be  as  surely  a  misgoverned  Church  as  a  universal  empire 
would  be  a  misgoverned  empire. 

Before  we  can  even  affirm  with  rational  confidence  that  all 
Churches  will  come  to  have  the  same  kind  of  government,  not 
to  speak  of  the  same  government,  we  must  have  convinced 
ourselves  that  there  is  one  kind  of  Church  government  which 
is  alone  of  divine  origin  and  authority.  This  is  not  now  the 
prevalent  view,  perhaps,  in  Protestant  Churches.  Most  Pres- 
byterians probably,  while  claiming  for  Presbytery  that  it  is 
"  founded  on  the  Word  of  God  aud  agreeable  thereto,"  will 
not  deny  that  the  same  may  be  said  of  other  forms  of  Church 
government.  The  unity  of  the  Church,  the  unity  of  believers, 
cannot  in  their  view  be  bound  up  with  any  one  kind  of  govern- 
ment. It  is  a  unity  not  to  be  sought  for  elsewhere  than  in  the 
love  of  God  the  Father,  the  cross  of  Christ,  the  work  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  and  the  hearts  of  believers. 

There  are  many  truths  in  my  text  still  unnoticed,  but  I  shall 
only  mention,  and  merely  mention,  the  one  which  is  most  pro- 
minent. The  oneness  of  Christians  is  not  simply  described  as 
a  blessing  to  themselves,  but  as  what  would  be  a  blessing  also 
to  the  world.  If  Christians  sincerely  and  fervently  loved  one 
another,  and  loved  the  Father  and  the  Son,  and  showed  by 
their  whole  conduct  how  precious,  how  joyous,  how  divine  a 
thing  Christian  love  was,  the  world  could  not  but  be  influenced 


CHRISTIAN    UNITY.  27 

by  the  sight.  The  love  of  Christ's  disciples  towards  one  another 
would  guide  it  to  the  love  of  Christ  Himself,  and  the  love  of 
Christ  to  the  love  of  the  Father;  and  so  the  world  would 
believe  that  God  really  had  sent  His  Son,  would  cease  to  be 
the  world,  and  would  joy  and  glory  in  its  Redeemer.  If  those 
who  call  themselves  Christians  were  all  really  so ;  if  they  were 
one  in  Christ,  and  strove  to  be  perfectly  one ;  if,  amidst  all 
differences  and  distinctions,  they  had  a  profound  affection  for 
one  another  ;  if  their  very  controversies  were  models  of  courtesy 
and  their  very  disputings  examples  of  meekness  and  humility ; 
if  brotherly  communion,  even  with  those  ecclesiastically  widest 
apart  from  them,  were  earnestly  sought  by  them,  and  brotherly 
co-operation  habitual  to  them,  the  effect  on  society  would  soon 
be  very  visible.  The  sarcasm  of  the  unbeliever  would  be 
silenced ;  the  native  loveliness  of  the  gospel  would  be  made 
manifest ;  and  Christians,  thus  one  in  heart  and  life,  in  affec- 
tion and  action,  would  come,  with  a  moral  might  unknown  by 
the  world  for  ages,  to  the  help  of  the  Lord  against  the 
mighty. 

"Nothing,"  said  one  of  the  greatest  of  English  philosophers, 
"  doth  so  much  keep  men  out  of  the  Church,  and  drive  men  out 
of  the  Church,  as  breach  of  unity."  "  Keep  your  smaller  differ- 
ences," was  the  exhortation  of  the  Reformer  of  Geneva ;  "  let 
us  have  no  discord  on  that  account ;  but  let  us  march  in  one 
solid  column,  under  the  banners  of  the  Captain  of  our  Salva- 
tion, and  with  undivided  counsels  form  the  legions  of  the  Cross 
upon  the  territories  of  darkness  and  of  death." 

May  God  bless  what  has  now  been  said. 

And  unto  Him  that  is  able  to  do  exceeding  abundantly  above 
all  that  we  ask  or  think,  according  to  the  power  that  worketh  in 
us,  unto  Him  be  glory  in  the  Church  of  Christ  Jesus  throughout 
all  ages,  world  without  end.     Amen  ! 


III. 

THE   GOOD   AND   PERFECT   GIFT   OF  ART.i 

"  Every  good  gift  and  every  perfect  gift  is  from  above,  and  cometh  down  from 
the  Father  of  lights,  with  whom  is  no  variableness,  neither  shadow  of  turn- 
ing."— James  i.  17. 

THESE  words  plainly  state  that  all  good  and  perfect  gifts 
come  from  one  and  the  same  source, — that  every  good  gift 
and  every  perfect  boon  has  its  origin  beyond  time,  beyond 
earth  and  man,  beyond  all  secondary  and  creaturely  causes,  in 
the  Eternal  Uncreated  Divine  First  Cause, — that  all  physical 
beauties,  all  providential  bounties,  all  gracious  influences,  all 
that  is  true,  all  that  is  lovely,  all  that  is  pure  and  righteous 
and  holy,  all  genuine  satisfactions,  all  real  blessings,  are  from 
the  all-perfect  and  all-loving  Father  in  whom  we  and  all  things 
live  and  move  and  have  our  being.  As  all  rays  of  sunlight 
issue  from  the  sun,  so  all  good  gifts  are  bestowed  by  the  one 
good  Giver. 

But  the  words  of  the  text  mean  more  than  this.  They  were 
spoken,  as  the  context  shows,  to  refute  and  rebuke  the  notion 
that  God  may  tempt  to  evil.  And  they  accomplish  their  object 
by  describing  God  as  one  who  not  only  gives  all  good,  but  who 
gives,  and  from  His  very  nature  can  give,  only  good ;  whose 
"giving"  always  and  necessarily  is  solely  for  good;  whose 
"  boons,"  seeing  that  they  must  be  like  Himself,  can  have  no 
faults  in  them.  His  gifts  may  be  abused,  but  the  abuse  is 
no  part  of  the  gifts ;  the  goods  He  confers  may  become  the 
occasions  of  temptations  to  evil,  but  as  He  cannot  be  tempted 
with  evil,  neither  tempteth  He  any  man ;  in  spite  of  the  light 
from  heaven  we  may  stray,  but  the  light  from  heaven  never 
leads  astray. 

God  gives  only  good,  never  evil,  as  the  sun  gives  only  light, 
never  darkness.     He  is  "  the  Father  of  lights,  with  whom  is 

1  Preached  in  St  Giles'  Church,  Edinburgh,  October  27,  1889,  before  the 
National  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Art. 

28 


THE    GOOD    AND    PERFECT    GIFT    OF    ART.  29 

no  variableness,  neither  shadow  of  turning  " — "  no  variation  or 
shadow  cast  by  turning."  The  sun  in  the  heavens  ever  raying 
forth  light  and  heat,  and  so  beautifying  and  nourishing  all 
nature,  is  an  emblem  of  God  and  His  giving ;  but  bright  and 
glorious  although  it  be,  it  is  only  a  feeble  and  inadequate 
emblem.  It  is  not  always  visible  and  present ;  it  rises  and 
sets  ;  it  is  at  one  time  nearer  and  at  another  farther  from  the 
earth ;  it  so  varies  and  changes  that  we  have  darkness  as  well 
as  liffht,  cold  as  well  as  heat.  But  it  is  not  so  with  God.  He 
changes  not  in  His  being,  attributes,  or  operations,  but  is  the 
same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  for  ever.  He  is  all  light,  pure 
light ;  has  no  darkness  or  shadow  in  Himself ;  can  have  no 
darkness  or  shadow  pass  over  Him ;  and  His  light  shines.  His 
good  and  perfect  gifts  How  forth  from  Him,  without  inter- 
ruption, without  cessation. 

Such  is  the  general  meaning  of  the  text;  and  now,  with 
the  help  of  Him  from  whom  all  good  desires,  resolutions,  and 
endeavours,  as  well  as  all  other  good  things  come,  I  wish  to 
give  it  such  an  application  as  may  be  suitable  to  the  occasion 
on  which  we  are  met. 

God  as  the  perfectly  good  is  not  only  Absolute  Truth,  and 
Absolute  Holiness,  but  also  Absolute  Beauty.  He  is  the  source, 
the  author,  the  giver  of  all  beautiful  things  and  qualities.  All 
the  beauties  of  earth  and  sea  and  sky,  of  life  and  mind  and 
spirit,  are  rays  from  His  beauty.  The  powers  by  which  they 
are  perceived  are  conferred  by  Him.  The  light  in  which  they 
are  seen  is  His  light.  As  Beauty  no  less  than  as  Power,  as 
Life,  as  Truth,  as  Love,  as  Holiness,  He  is  ever  giving,  ever 
giving  good  gifts,  ever  giving  Himself,  ever  revealing  Himself, 
for  His  giving  of  Himself  is  His  revealing  of  Himself,  and  His 
revealing  of  Himself  is  His  giving  of  Himself,  whether  it  be  in 
the  fragrance  of  flowers  and  the  songs  of  birds,  or  in  inspired 
thoughts  and  sanctified  ajffections  of  men,  or  in  the  incarnation 
and  atonement  of  Him  who  was  the  brightness  of  His  glory 
and  the  express  image  of  His  person. 

And  how  liberally  and  incessantly  He  bestows  His  gifts  of 
beauty !  And  how  good  and  perfect  these  gifts  are !  He  gives 
with  the  affluence  of  an  inexhaustible  because  infinite  Being. 
The  immeasurable  depths  of  space  are  strewn  with  stars  beau- 


30  THE    GOOD    AND    PERFECT    GIFT    OF    ART. 

tiful  in  their  colours,  motions,  and  groupings.  There  is  no 
painter  like  the  sun,  no  brush  like  his  rays.  The  sky  is  ever 
changing,  so  as  to  produce  scene  after  scene,  picture  after 
picture,  glory  after  glory.  The  successions  of  the  seasons  and 
the  alternations  of  day  and  night  bring  with  them  heavenliest 
visions.  Innumerable  are  the  varieties  of  colour,  of  sound,  and 
of  motion,  which  please  sense  and  heart  and  mind.  The 
bleakest  parts  of  earth,  the  loneliest  nooks  of  the  forest,  the 
thinnest  crevices  of  the  rocks,  are  found  adorned  by  flowers  of 
exquisite  grace.  The  tiniest  creatures  in  the  depths  of  the 
sea  are  moulded  and  tinted  with  an  inimitable  precision  and 
delicacy.  And  the  beauties  of  the  material  and  animal  worlds 
are  surpassed  by  those  of  the  mental  and  moral  worlds — those 
displayed  in  the  workings  of  human  affection,  in  the  move- 
ments of  human  thought,  in  the  experiences  of  human  life,  in 
the  scenes  of  human  history.  Wherever  sympathy  and  gener- 
osity find  expression,  wherever  there  are  traces  of  sorrow  rightly 
borne  or  of  the  conquest  of  the  spirit  over  the  flesh,  wherever 
personal  worth  or  Divine  grace  makes  itself  visible,  wherever 
there  are  actions  with  true  human  interest,  pathos,  or  signifi- 
cance in  them,  there  are  beauties  which  the  adequately  refined 
and  cultured  judgment  will  pronounce  higher  than  any  pre- 
sented by  the  qualities  and  combinations  of  matter. 

Beauty  has  been  scattered  with  so  bountiful  a  hand  around 
us  that  there  is  no  need  to  travel  to  a  distance  to  find  it.  It  is 
in  all  places,  on  all  faces,  within  all  lives.  It  is  on  the  surface 
almost  everywhere  ;  it  is  buried  everywhere.  To  see  it  requires 
only  the  opening  of  an  eye  which  has  a  soul  behind  it. 

"  If  we  have  souls,  know  liow  to  see  and  use, 
One  place  performs,  like  any  other  place, 
The  proper  service  every  place  on  earth 
Was  framed  to  furnish  man  with  :  serves  alike 
To  give  him  note  that,  through  the  place  he  sees, 
A  place  is  signified  lie  never  saw, 
But,  if  he  lack  not  soul,  may  learn  to  know. 
Earth's  ugliest  walled  and  ceiled  imprisonment 
May  suffer,  through  its  single  rent  in  roof. 
Admittance  of  a  cataract  of  light 
Beyond  attainment  through  earth's  palace-panes 
Pinholed  athwart  their  windowed  filagree 
By  twinklings  sobered  from  the  sun  outside." 


THE    GOOD    AND    PERFECT    GIFT    OF    ART.  31 

But  God  not  only  gives  in  inexhaustible  profusion  objects 
of  beauty,  He  also  gives  power  to  see  beauty,  capacity  to  enjoy 
it,  ability  to  express  by  various  means  and  in  various  forms  the 
visions  of  beauty  vouchsafed  and  the  feelings  which  they  elicit. 
He  implants,  that  is  to  say,  in  human  nature  those  elements, 
emotions,  and  aptitudes,  which  are  the  roots  of  art  with  all  its 
branches  and  developments.  He  bestows  them  on  all  men  ; 
and  on  those  whom  He  destines  to  serve  Him  as  artists  He 
bestows  them  in  an  exceptional  measure.  They  are  among 
the  common  and  essential  characteristics  of  human  nature — 
features  of  the  Divine  image  in  that  nature — yea,  that  nature 
itself  as  receptive  and  reflective  of  the  beauty  revealed  by  God, 
The  aesthetic  nature  in  its  own  way,  like  the  moral  and  religious 
nature,  is  the  whole  nature  in  a  special  attitude  or  relation  ; 
it  includes  head,  and  heart,  and  hand.  As  regards  its  higher 
endowments  artists  are,  indeed,  God's  elected  children,  but 
Divine  election  is  only  the  election  of  some  to  special  privilege 
for  the  greatest  good  of  all.  Were  not  lower  endowments  the 
same  in  kind  given  to  men  in  general,  the  artist's  influence  would 
have  narrow  and  impassable  limits,  and  his  mission  among  his 
fellows  would  be  restricted  to  action  on  the  class  or  caste  which 
least  needed  his  aid.  As  it  is,  while  God  has  given  with  special 
graciousness  to  him.  He  has  also  so  given  to  all  that  the  true 
field  of  the  artist's  influence  is  "  the  world,"  and  it  is  only  owing 
to  the  want  of  the  appropriate  culture  or  the  positive  degrada- 
tion of  human  nature  that  his  public  is  not  all  mankind. 

Art  is  not  less  a  gift  of  God  to  men  because  realised  through 
the  efforts  of  men  themselves.  It  is  not  less  a  good  and  per- 
fect gift  because  only  slowly  and  progressively  realised.  Nothing 
could  be  less  perfect  in  relation  to  man  than  an  unvarying 
stereotyped  perfection.  Therefore  the  perfect,  unvarying, 
changeless  God  has  revealed  His  perfection  through  endless 
variation  and  change.  Therefore  His  revelation  of  His  beauty 
has  been,  like  His  revelation  of  His  truth,  His  righteousness, 
His  love,  one  made  "  at  sundry  times  and  in  divers  manners  " — 
a  vast  development  always  in  correspondence  with  the  require- 
ments and  capacities  of  the  recipients.  He  has  gradually  guided 
men  to  an  ever  clearer  and  fuller  perception  of  the  beauties  dis- 
played in  nature,  raid  gradually  enabled  them  to  build  up  a 


32  THE    GOOD    AXD    PERFECT    GIFT    OF    ART. 

world  of  beauty  of  their  owu  with  a  charm  and  an  interest  in 
various  respects  even  higher  than  that  of  nature. 

This  world  of  art  made  by  men  themselves,  but  by  men 
empowered,  inspired,  and  guided  by  God,  has  been  gradually 
built  up  ever  since  man  appeared  on  earth.  Its  beginnings 
must  have  been  most  rudimentary,  otherwise  they  would  have 
given  no  pleasure,  and  been  of  no  use  to  the  rude  beginners. 
But  already,  in  the  quaternar}^  period  of  geologists,  the  Cro- 
Magnon  race  had  produced  true  artists.  There  has  been  no 
break  in  the  history  of  art  since,  nor  has  there  been  any  people 
wholly  without  art,  any  more  than  without  morality  or  religion. 
From  age  to  age,  under  Divine  impulse  and  direction,  all  gene- 
rations and  nations  have  been  co-operating  and  contributing  to 
rear,  to  adorn,  to  fill  a  structure  broad  as  the  earth  and  rising 
towards  heaven ;  and  now  that  Egypt  and  India,  Assyria  and 
Persia,  China  and  Japan,  Israel  and  Greece,  Eome  and  the 
mediaeval  worlds,  and  all  the  kingdoms  of  modern  Europe  have 
given  of  their  best  to  it,  now  that  architecture  in  so  many  forms, 
sculpture  at  every  stage,  the  painting  of  all  schools,  the  music 
of  all  lands,  the  poetry  of  all  peoples  have  enriched  it,  now  that 
it  contains  countless  immortal  and  priceless  productions  of 
genius,  it  stands  before  us  a  magnificent  and  glorious  fabric,  a 
fitting  palace  for  the  Eternal  King,  a  creation  evoked  by  God 
from  the  human  spirit,  and  not  inferior  to  the  physical  cosmos 
evolved  from  chaos. 

To  dwell  on  the  goodness  and  perfectness  of  God's  gift  of 
art  would  be  easy,  and  might  be  profitable  ;  but  enough  has, 
perhaps,  been  said  to  warrant  and  support  the  few  words  of 
practical  application  which  are  all  that  time  will  now  allow  me 
to  speak. 

First,  then,  seeing  that  beauty  and  art  are  good  and  perfect 
gifts  of  God,  things  of  Divine  sacredness  and  of  Divine  ex- 
cellence, they  are  to  be  treated  as  such,  to  be  reverenced  and 
valued,  to  be  cherished  and  cultivated.  They  ought  to  be  so 
treated  by  all,  and  all  will  find  abundant  reward  in  gratefully, 
wisely,  and  justly  appreciating  them.  In  a  world  like  ours, 
where  there  is  so  much  to  depress,  to  debase,  and  sadden  life, 
it  is  a  vast  misfortune  that  any  one  should  not  have  all  the 
avenues  of  his  soul  as  open  as  possible  to  whatever  tends  to 


THE    GOOD    AND    PERFECT    GIFT    OF    ART.  33 

elevate,  purify,  and  brighten  existence,  to  give  serenity  to  the 
mind  and  peace  to  the  heart,  and  to  reveal  God  in  any  of  His 
aspects.  But,  of  course,  as  wherever  there  is  special  privilege 
there  is  special  obligation,  the  artist  is  specially  bound  to 
receive  those  gifts  of  God's  goodness,  those  aptitudes  of  his 
own  nature,  which  have  relation  to  the  discernment  and  realisa- 
tion of  beauty,  with  a  grateful  and  loyal,  an  honest  and  good 
heart,  jealously  to  guard  them  from  all  contamination  and 
perversion,  faithfully  to  improve  and  develop  them,  nobly  to 
exercise  and  use  them.  He  is  bound  to  resist  all  seductions 
and  temptations  which  would  make  his  work  unworthy  of  his 
high  calling — less  thorough,  less  sincere,  less  truthful  and 
significant,  less  fair  and  elevating  than  it  ought  to  be.  He, 
a  man  generally  more  susceptible,  perhaps,  than  other  men 
to  the  shows  and  appearances  of  things  and  the  lusts  of  the 
eye,  the  world  and  the  flesh,  must  be  ready  and  resolute  to 
sacrifice  all  semblances  without  reality,  all  charms  and  pleasures 
wliich  entice  him  from  the  pursuit  of  the  beauty  which  is  a 
joy  for  ever,  all  cheap  popularity,  all  easy  triumphs,  all  short 
routes  to  fame  or  wealth. 

This  he  can  only  do  if  a  good  and  true  man,  whose  heart 
is  high  and  pure,  whose  spirit  is  morally  healthy  and  strong, 
who  loves  God  and  man,  and  is  reverently  obedient  to  the 
voice  of  duty.  Whatever  vitiates  the  character  of  the  artist, 
robs  him  of  inner  force,  of  clearness  of  vision  and  self-control, 
must  vitiate  his  work.  Whatever  ennobles,  enlarges,  and  re- 
fines himself  must  enhance  the  excellence  of  his  productions. 
He  who  would  bring  forth  fruits  of  beauty  must  strive,  there- 
fore, to  have  a  beautiful  life — to  be  "  all  beautiful  within." 
From  the  foul  what  is  fair  cannot  come;  from  the  mean  the 
great  cannot  come.  There  is  no  law  in  the  universe  more 
certain  or  inexorable  than  this.  Let  no  one  think,  therefore, 
that  he  may  be  a  mean  and  evil  man  yet  a  great  and  good 
artist ;  that  he  may  be  true  to  himself  as  an  artist,  otherwise 
than  by  being  true  to  himself  as  a  man,  and,  therefore,  also 
true  to  his  fellow-men  and  to  his  God.  He  who  would  cultivate 
art  aright  must  cultivate  virtue  and  religion  too.  Virtue  and 
religion,  indeed,  will  not  enable  a  man  to  become  an  artist 
who   has   not    received    the   artist's   special   gifts,    but   every 


34  THE    GOOD    AND   PERFECT    GIFT    OF    ART. 

virtuous  quality,  every  religious  excellence,  will  not  only  be  a 
safeguard  to  the  artist  against  the  perversion  and  degradation 
of  his  gifts,  but  a  source  of  positive  strength  and  power  in 
the  use  of  them.  The  triple  cord  is  stronger  than  the  single 
thread.  It  is  to  their  united  strength  that  the  artist  must 
trust  if  he  would  overcome  the  trials  and  temptations  of  the 
disciplinary  and  preparatory  stages  of  his  life,  and  attain  to 
that  serene  and  happy  region  to  which  they  alike  attract  us, 
and  to  which  all  that  is  best  in  us  aspires — 

"  Wliere  love  is  an  unerring  light 
And  joy  its  own  security." 

Secondly,  the  artist  has  not  only  to  attend  to  his  own  self- 
culture,  but  also  to  accomplish  an  important  social  mission. 
Art  does  not  exist  merely  for  the  advantage  and  enjoyment 
of  the  artist.  Like  everything  else  it  may  be  perverted  to 
selfish  ends,  but  the  perversion  denaturalises  and  debases  it, 
for  it  is  essentially  a  social  thing,  meant  for  the  good  of  man 
as  man.  The  charm  of  it  is  not  lessened  by  being  shared, 
but  is  the  better  enjoyed  for  being  enjoyed  in  common.  The 
only  appropriate  soil  or  medium  of  it  is  one  of  sympathy,  love, 
brotherliness.  Its  ends  are  not  individual  and  class  ends, 
but  human  and  universal  ends.  Its  goodness  and  perfectness 
as  God's  gift  is  seen  in  its  fitness  to  be  to  all  men,  even  to 
the  humblest  and  the  poorest,  an  enlarger  of  the  range  of 
thought,  a  refiner  of  the  feelings,  a  source  of  impulse  and 
inspiration  in  work,  a  soother  of  sorrow  and  giver  of  joy,  a 
revealer  of  the  invisible  and  spiritual — auxiliary  to  moral  pur- 
poses, subservient  to  divine. 

The  social  importance  of  art,  perhaps,  few  adequately  realise. 
It  is  in  every  way  sufficient  to  entitle  it  to  be  ranked  along 
with  science  and  religion  as  regards  beneficent  tendency.  Con- 
sider its  most  direct  and  obvious  function — to  give  pleasure 
of  a  pure  and  special  kind — pleasure  which  leaves  no  sting 
behind,  but,  on  the  contrary,  evokes  good  feelings,  and 
strengthens  for  good  works.  Is  there  not  in  that  simply 
motive  enough  to  stimulate  to  do  his  best  any  artist  who  is 
a  good-hearted  man,  who  loves  his  brother  men,  and  wishes 
to  see  them  happier  and  better  ?     Is  to  dijffuse  pure  happiness 


THE    GOOD    AND    PERFECT   GIFT    OF    ART.  35 

not  a  good  and  godlike  work  ?  But  art  exists  not  merely  to 
gratify  our  senses,  and  our  minds  and  hearts  through  our 
senses,  but  to  educate  them,  to  give  them  increased  power  and 
delicacy,  to  renew  and  regenerate  them.  Art,  through  the 
works  of  artists,  is  meant  to  do  for  mankind  in  general  that 
service  which  Wordsworth  says  his  sister  had  done  for  him — 

"  She  gave  me  eyes,  she  gave  me  ears  ; 
And  humble  cares,  and  delicate  fears  ; 
A  heart,  the  fountain  of  sweet  tears, 
And  love,  and  thought,  and  joy." 

This  is  a  great  and  a  blessed  service,  for  men  left  to  themselves 
have  eyes  but  they  see  not,  ears  but  they  hear  not,  and  hearts 
but  they  are  most  unsusceptible  and  unintelligent.  If  they  see 
and  hear  it  is  only  with  their  eyes  and  ears,  not  through  them 
with  their  minds  and  hearts,  which  is  the  only  way  of  seeing 
and  hearing  worthy  of  a  man  ;  if  they  feel  and  understand  it 
is  little  beyond  what  they  can  weigh  and  measure,  not  the 
inner  reality,  goodness,  and  beauty  of  things.  They  need  such 
eyes  and  ears,  such  hearts  and  minds,  that  all  sights  and  sounds 
in  the  material  world  will  be  seen  and  heard  as  they  are  in 
relation  to  the  spiritual  world,  and  all  the  experiences  of 
human  life  reveal  what  they  imply  of  the  mysteries  of  destiny. 
And  such  eyes  and  ears,  such  minds  and  hearts,  it  is  one  great 
function  of  art  to  give  and  educate.  By  performing  it  it  may 
so  reveal  to  us  as  almost  to  be  said  to  re-create  for  us  both  the 
worlds  of  matter  and  of  spirit,  showing  us 

"  The  earth,  and  every  common  sight, 
Apparelled  in  celestial  light," 

and  causing  us  to  see  in  the  soul  and  its  history  wondrous 
heights  and  depths,  splendours  and  terrors,  the  struggle  of 
awful  powers,  infinite  variety,  endless  contrasts,  the  most 
pathetic  interests,  the  most  solemn  issues.  The  artist  may 
well  seek  to  be  faithful  to  his  calling  in  this  respect.  A 
painter,  for  example,  may  well  be  content  to  study  and  labour 
for  years,  to  show  how  water  ripples  over  a  stone,  or  how  a 
wind-driven  wave  breaks  on  the  shore,  or  how  in  various  lights 


36  THE    GOOD    AND    PERFECT    GIFT    OF    ART. 

different  objects  loom  through  vapours,  for  in  so  far  as  he 
succeeds,  mankind  succeeds.  His  triumph  is  no  slight  and 
vulgar  one ;  but  this,  what  even  he,  exceptionally  gifted  and 
trained,  found  it  so  difficult  to  see,  he  has  made  comparatively 
easy  even  for  common  men  to  see  from  henceforth  for  ever. 

But  art  has  still  other  social  duties.  It  may,  for  example, 
oreatly  contribute  to  increase  the  worth  of  labour  and  to  pro- 
mote the  prosperity  of  industry.  It  is  in  vain  to  expect  a  man 
to  become  a  good  workman,  who  has  not  something  of  the 
artist's  vision,  and  touch,  and  sentiment,  who  has  no  eye  for 
finish  and  elegance,  no  neatness  and  deftness  of  hand,  no  love 
of  and  pride  in  good  work  for  its  own  sake.  A  vast  number 
of  workmen  unfortunately  bring  to  their  work  merely  their 
physical  strength,  not  intelligence,  taste,  and  skill.  Wherever 
there  is  a  numerous  and  increasing  population,  such  workmen 
must  be  in  constant  danger  of  being  greatly  in  excess  of  the 
demand  for  them.  In  this  country  the  necessity  is  becoming 
ever  more  and  more  apparent  and  urgent,  that  workmen  should 
be  not  mere  workmen,  but  skilled  workmen,  artistic  workmen. 
Of  such  workmen  Britain  is  never  likely  to  have  too  many,  is 
always  likely  to  have  too  few.  How  is  she  to  get  them  ?  How 
are  they  to  be  formed  and  instructed  ?  How  is  British  industry 
to  be  allied  with  British  art,  so  as  to  maintain  the  supremacy 
to  which  Britain  owes  so  much  of  her  greatness?  These  are 
questions  which  concern  all,  but  in  which  artists  have  also  a 
special  interest,  in  connection  with  which  they  have  special 
responsibilities,  and  to  which  they  may  well  be  expected  to 
give  special  consideration. 

One  thing  is  obvious.  If  labouring  men  are  to  do  more  for 
art,  art  must  also  do  more  for  them.  It  must  come  closer  to 
them,  and  become  familiar  to  them  and  to  their  children,  in 
their  common  surroundings,  in  their  home  lives.  If  men  and 
women  are  to  be  socialised  and  refined,  made  susceptible  to  the 
beautiful  and  the  ideal,  we  must  desire  that  they  be  born  and 
brought  up  amidst  very  different  circumstances  than  are  to  be 
found  in  the  slums  of  our  great  cities.  It  is  not  beyond  the 
resources  of  civilisation  to  make  the  blessings  of  art  accessible 
to  the  poor ;  but  these  resources  certainly  require  to  be  utilised 
with  far  more  wisdom  and  energy  than  they  have  hitherto  been. 


THE    GOOD    AND    PERFECT    GIFT    OF    ART.  o7 

Art  cannot  be  better  employed  than  in  guiding,  cheering,  and 
glorifying  labour.  Wealth  cannot  be  better  employed  than  in 
aiding  art,  in  this  service. 

Finally,  the  artist  has  not  only  to  cultivate  the  gifts  within 
him,  and  therewith  serve  his  fellow-men,  but  also  therewith  to 
glorify  God.  He  is  God's  debtor,  and  he  ought  to  be  God's 
minister.  As  both  all  beauty  and  all  power  to  see  and  to 
reproduce  it  come  from  God,  the  artist  may  justly  feel,  yea,  is 
bound  to  feel,  that  his  whole  professional  life  is  occupied  with 
the  things  of  God.  Even  if  not  dealing  with  sacred  subjects 
specially  so  called,  if  not  cultivating  some  department  of  what 
is  termed  sacred  art,  he  must  realise  that  art  is  essentially 
sacred,  the  pursuit  of  it  essentially  a  divine  priesthood  and 
ministry,  and  that  his  professional  life  ought  to  be  throughout 
the  whole  extent  of  it,  a  consecrated  life,  a  life  lived  within 
God's  life,  a  hallowing  of  God's  name,  an  advancing  of  God's 
kingdom,  a  doing  of  God's  will. 

The  name  of  God  is  one  which  includes  beauty  as  well  as 
truth  and  righteousness,  and  will  therefore  never  be  fully 
hallowed  without  the  efforts  of  art.  The  true  and  the  good 
can  never  be  perfected  until  they  are  permanently  wedded  to 
the  beautiful,  and  the  whole  of  life  is  transfigured  into  forms 
of  beauty,  and  until  then  the  kingdom  of  God  cannot  have 
fully  come.  The  will  of  God  is  not  a  merely  cold  and  stern 
physical  and  moral  law,  but  one  which  lacks  no  beauty  or 
attraction,  which  "wears  the  Godhead's  most  benignant  face," 
and  it  cannot  be  rightly  conceived  until  art  has  so  revealed  it. 

If  the  artist,  however,  be  called  to  a  service  so  high  and 
sacred  as  this  implies,  he  ought  obviously  to  be  a  man  filled 
in  his  whole  being  with  a  sense  of  the  nearness  and  glory  of 
God,  with  the  presence,  power,  and  consciousness  of  God.  His 
life  should  be  so  hid  with  God  that  he  may  see  whatever  is 
pure,  good,  and  beautiful  on  earth  as  the  outflowings  of  God's 
uncreated  and  ineffable  loveliness  and  perfection.  But  thus 
to  live  with  God  and  to  see  God  the  heart  must  be  pure,  the 
spirit  right,  and  God  present  Himself  as  a  reconciled  Father. 
Thus  to  live  with  God  and  see  God,  man  needs  to  accept  the 
revelation  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus,  to  yield  himself  up  to  the 
regenerating  and   sanctifying   power  of  the   Holy  Spirit,  to 


38  THE    GOOD    AND    PERFECT    GIFT    OF    ART. 

accept  the  Divine  truth  and  grace  offered  in  the  Gospel.     This 
may  God  grant  that  we  all  sincerely  and  rejoicingly  do. 

"  Two  worlds  are  ours  :  'tis  only  sin 
Forbids  us  to  descry 
The  mystic  heaven  and  earth  within 
Plain  as  the  sea  and  sky. 

Thou,  who  hast  given  us  eyes  to  see 

And  love  this  sight  so  fair, 
O  give  us  hearts  to  find  out  Thee 

And  read  Thee  everywhere." 


IV. 

JESUS  CHRIST,  THE  FAITHFUL  WITNESS,  THE 
FIRST-BEGOTTEN  OF  THE  DEAD,  AND  THE 
PRINCE    OF   THE    KINGS    OF  THE    EARTH.i 

"  Jesus  Christ,  (who  is)  the  faithful  witness,  (and)  the  first-begotten  of  the 
dead,  and  the  Prince  of  the  kings  of  the  earth." — Rev.  i.  5. 

JESUS  CHRIST  is  here  set  before  us  in  three  aspects  which 
certainly  merit  our  serious  and  prayerful  consideration. 
Three  most  appropriate  titles,  full  of  meaning,  full  of  instruc- 
tion, are  given  to  Him.  Let  us  meditate  for  a  little  on  each  of 
these  titles.  Let  us  try  to  enter  into  the  signification  of  them. 
Let  us  seek  not  to  have  any  thoughts  of  our  own  about  them, 
but  to  apprehend  the  thoughts  of  God  which  are  already  in 
them,  and  to  accept  these  thoughts  with  the  whole  mind  and 
heart,  humbly  and  sincerely  renouncing  all  thoughts,  imagina- 
tions, and  inclinations  of  our  own  which  are  contrary  to  them. 
May  we — in  the  light  which  is  from  God  and  through  the 
guidance  of  the  Spirit  of  God — see  the  truth  of  this  portion 
of  His  Word,  and  may  that  truth  be  to  us  strength  and  joy ! 

Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  is,  then,  in  this  verse,  first  spoken  of 
as  "the  faithful  witness."  This  title  is  one  which,  on  a  very 
memorable  occasion,  He  claimed  for  Himself.  To  understand 
the  title  we  must  go  back  to  that  occasion.  Christ  stood  a 
prisoner  before  Pilate.  His  Jewish  accusers,  anxious  to  obtain 
against  Him  a  sentence  of  death,  charged  Him  with  treason 
against  the  sovereignty  of  Rome,  and  alleged  in  proof  that 
He  had  declared  Himself  to  be  a  king.  Christ  calmly  but 
emphatically  repelled  what  there  was  of  calumny  in  the  charge. 
By  a  single  sentence  of  explanation  He  made  it  manifest  that 
His  enemies  had  perverted  His  words ;  that  no  claim  to  king- 
ship which  He  had  made  implied  conflict  or  competition  with 

^  Preached  in  St  Giles'  Church,  Edinburgh,  May  29,  1881,  and  published  b)- 

request  of  His  Grace  the  Lord  High  Commissioner  to  the  General  Assembly  of 

the  Church  of  Scotland. 

39 


40  THE    FAITHFUL    WITNESS. 

the  claims  of  the  Roman  emperor.  "My  kingdom,"  He  said, 
"is  not  of  this  world."  He  thus  gave  Pilate  an  assurance  that 
Roman  rule  had  nothing,  directly  at  least,  to  fear  from  Him — 
that  He  had  made  no  claim  to  an  earthly  crown — that  it  was 
not  His  mission  to  be  the  rival  or  antagonist  of  Cassar,  "  My 
kingdom  is  not  of  this  world,"  It  is  not  a  sovereignty  like 
that  of  the  emperor;  not  a  visible,  temporal  monarchy;  not 
a  kingdom  which  can  be  established,  or  sustained,  or  extended 
by  physical  power ;  not  a  dominion  for  the  support  or  spread 
of  which  the  subjects  can  reasonably  make  any  use  of  carnal 
weapons. 

Yet  these  words  of  Christ  were  not  words  of  mere  denial. 
They  involved  the  assertion  that  He  was  of  right  and  in  very 
deed  a  king.  "  My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world."  This  clearly 
meant  that  He  had  a  kingdom.  Hence  Pilate's  next  question 
was :  "  Art  thou  a  king  then  ?  " — put  perhaps  in  mere  wonder, 
perhaps  in  sarcasm — perhaps  to  suggest  that  it  would  be  well 
to  speak  more  cautiously,  and  altogether  to  avoid  the  use  of 
dangerous  words  like  "king"  and  "kingdom,"  From  what- 
ever motive  put,  the  question  led  our  Lord  to  state  more  fully, 
more  distinctly,  what  His  claim  was.  "  I  am  a  king,"  He  said. 
"For  this  very  purpose  was  I  born,  and  for  this  very  cause 
came  I  into  the  world,  that  I  might  hear  witness  to  the  truth." 

This  was  how  He  was  a  king.  He  was  born  a  king — came 
forth  irom  the  realm  of  eternal  truth  into  the  world  to  reveal 
and  confirm  truth — that  so  He  might  build  up  over  the  spirits 
of  men  a  spiritual  kingdom.  He  was  willing  to  rest  His  title 
to  rule  over  men  on  this,  that  He  was  the  manifestation  to 
them  of  the  truth.  There  could  be  no  title  so  good  as  that ; 
and  we  may  even  say,  no  other  title  can  be  valid  for  the  spirit. 
Force  can  rule  the  body ;  truth  alone  can  rule  the  spirit.  And 
to  rule  the  spirit  is  obviously  the  truest  kingship,  for  the  spirit 
is  meant  to  rule  the  body,  and  not  the  body  to  rule  the  spirit. 
The  sovereignty  which  is  based  merely  on  force,  and  extends 
merely  over  the  body,  is  but  a  superficial  sovereignty  even  of 
an  earthly  kind.  The  highest  idea  of  kingship  is  the  ruling 
of  spirits  by  the  manifestation  of  the  truth  to  their  intellects 
and  affections.  This  w^as  the  idea  of  kingship  which  Christ 
claimed  to  have  realised.     He  presented  Himself  as  a  king  in 


THE    FAITHFUL   WITNESS.  41 

the  highest,  and  deepest,  and  truest  sense,  and  in  that  sense 
only.  By  doing  so  His  claims  rose  above  all  possible  com- 
petition with  those  of  Ca3sar.  No  Caesar  ventured  to  claim — 
no  Caesar  dreamed  of  claiming — more  than  a  secondary  and 
superficial  sovereignty.  No  Cajsar  even  knew  what  true  sove- 
reignty was.  That  poor  prisoner  before  Pilate  professed  to 
be — knew  Himself  to  be — a  king  in  a  sense  which  placed  Him 
far  beyond  the  rivalry  of  the  greatest  and  most  ambitious  of 
the  Ctesars. 

It  is  not  simply,  however,  to  truth  in  general — still  less  is 
it  to  special  sections  of  truth,  and  least  of  all  is  it  to  isolated 
and  particular  truths — that  Christ  has  come  into  the  world  to 
be  a  witness ;  it  is  to  the  truth — the  source,  the  foundation, 
the  vital  essence  of  all  truth — the  light  which  shines  through 
all  truth,  and  in  which  all  truth  should  be  aj)prehended — the 
truth  which  is  of  primary  and  infinite  importance — the  truth 
which  it  is  eternal  life  to  know,  and  eternal  death  not  to  know. 
This  truth  Christ  bore  witness  to  not  merely  by  preaching  it, 
not  merely  by  proving  it,  but  by  being  it,  by  embodying  it. 
"  /  am  the  truth,"  He  could  say.  That  which  in  the  Divine 
nature  was  unknown — which  our  thoughts  and  affections  could 
not  reach  and  grasp,  yet  which  was  the  source  whence  alone 
spiritual  life  could  be  drawn — was  broiight  near  to  us — was 
made  to  stand  out  clearly  before  our  very  eyes — was  made  an 
object  for  our  minds  to  contemplate,  for  our  hearts  to  love, 
through  the  Word  becoming  flesh.  The  power,  the  wisdom, 
the  justice,  the  love,  the  mercy  of  God — all  these  Christ  bore 
witness  to,  all  these  He  showed  forth,  by  being  in  Himself  the 
brightness  of  the  glory  of  God  and  the  express  image  of  His 
person.  For  this  very  purpose  was  He  born ;  for  this  very 
cause  came  He  into  the  world.  Christ  was  thus  a  witness  as 
none  other  has  ever  been.  He  testified  of  the  Father  by  the 
direct  revelation  to  us  of  the  Father's  character  in  His  own. 
He  showed  forth  throughout  His  whole  life  from  Bethlehem 
to  Calvary — from  the  manger  to  the  cross — the  truth  of  the 
Divine  nature  uswards,  testifying  of  all  that  was  in  the  heart 
of  the  eternal  Father  towards  His  weak  and  sinful  children ; 
and  this  He  did  through  being  one  with  the  Father — the  perfect 
manifestation  of  the  Father. 


42  THE    FAITHFUL    WITNESS. 

He  thus  stood  not  only  pre-eminent  but  alone  as  a  witness. 
As  to  the  truth — the  deepest  and  the  highest  truth — the  truth 
of  the  Divine  nature — the  truth  which  is  the  soul's  life — the 
witness  of  the  world's  greatest  teachers  has  been  dependent  on 
that  of  Christ.  He  has  been  the  primary  and  direct  witness, 
while  others  have  been  only  secondary  and  indirect  witnesses. 
"  No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time :  the  only  begotten  Son 
who  is  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  He  hath  declared  Him." 
"No  man  knoweth  the  Son,  but  the  Father;  neither  knoweth 
any  man  the  Father  save  the  Son,  and  he  to  whomsoever  the 
Son  will  reveal  Him."  Apart  from  Christ's  testimony,  no 
complete  certainty  is  to  be  had  as  to  God's  true  character, — 
as  to  his  Fatherhood,  for  example,  and  redeeming  love, — 
although  to  know  God  as  He  is,  is  to  know  the  truth  of 
truths — the  truth.  Certainty  here,  where  certainty  is  most 
needed — because  if  not  found  here,  the  whole  mind  and  whole 
life  must  be  uncertain  and  unsettled — can  only  be  had  through 
Christ.  If  His  testimony  can  be  shown  to  have  failed,  there  is 
no  good  ground  at  all  to  hope  for  that  knowledge  of  the  truth 
as  to  God  which  religion  implies  and  demands  in  order  not  to 
be  itself  a  delusion.  Whether  or  not  we  are  to  give  faith  to 
the  prophets,  apostles,  saints,  and  martyrs  who  have  testified  of 
God,  must  depend  entirely  on  whether  or  not  Christ  has  been 
"the  faithful  witness,"  for  their  testimony  needs  to  be  con- 
firmed through  His.  If  His  testimony  be  not  true,  the  prophets 
must  have  prophesied  falsely,  the  apostles  must  have  been 
fanatics  or  deceivers,  and  the  saints  must  have  lived  and  the 
martyrs  must  have  died  through  belief  in  a  lie.  If  His  witness 
be  not  true,  then  there  can  have  been  no  real  witnesses  at  all 
to  any  truth  higher  than  the  truths  of  nature. 

The  faithfulness  of  Christ  as  a  witness  being  thus  the  foun- 
dation of  all  reasonable  trust  in  revelation  and  its  disclosures — 
in  redemption  and  its  promises — the  title  of  "the  faithful 
witness"  assigned  to  Him  is  manifestly  a  most  sublime  and 
honourable  one.  It  is  also  a  most  appropriate  one,  as  will  at 
once  appear  if  we  ask  ourselves  what  faithfulness  in  a  witness 
means,  and  how  Christ  showed  such  faithfulness.  Now,  in  the 
first  place,  a  faithful  witness  to  any  truth  is  one  who  communi- 
cates that  truth  with  accuracy  and  fulness ;    and  Christ  was 


THE    FAITHFUL   WITNESS.  43 

thus  a  faithful  witness  to  the  truth.  The  testimony  of  a  faith- 
ful witness  is  true  testimony — testimony  which  accurately  and 
adequately  sets  forth  to  those  to  whom  it  is  given  that  to 
which  it  relates ;  and  such  was  Christ's  testimony.  He  came 
to  bear  witness  to  the  truth  by  the  revelation  of  the  Godhead ; 
and  He  did  so  truly,  accurately,  adequately,  making  known  the 
Father  as  He  really  is,  so  that  he  who  has  seen  and  known 
Him  has  also  seen  and  known  the  Father.  His  testimony  to 
the  Godhead  was  the  truthful,  accurate,  adequate  testimony  of 
one  in  whom  dwelt  all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily.  He 
showed  forth  its  power,  since  man's  feeble  nature  in  its  union 
with  Him  overthrew  the  dominion  of  Satan ;  its  wisdom,  since 
His  work  of  redemption  satisfied  alike  Divine  justice  and 
Divine  mercy;  its  righteousness,  since  He  became  subject  to 
the  law  and  fulfilled  all  its  requirements;  its  love,  since  in  Him 
sacrifice  was  carried  to  its  utmost  conceivable  extent — a  height 
and  depth,  length  and  breadth,  of  self-denying  affection  which 
cannot  be  comprehended  ;  its  glory,  its  beauty,  its  tenderness, 
since  Divinity  expressed  itself  in  Him  in  a  humanity  the  most 
attractive,  affectionate,  and  gentle.  His  testimony  to  what 
God  is, — to  the  nature  of  the  Eternal — to  the  character  of  Him 
with  whom  we  have  to  do — to  the  disposition  of  the  Father 
towards  us,  to  the  demands  of  His  law  upon  us,  and  to  His 
purjDOses  concerning  us, — is  a  testimony  in  all  points  absolutely 
true :  it  may  be  completely  trusted ;  not  one  jot  or  tittle  of  it 
will  be  disproved.  Heaven  and  earth  may  pass  away,  but  it 
will  endure  for  ever.  He  whose  soul  rests  on  it  will  not  be 
deceived.  Were  it  otherwise,  Christ  would  not  be  the  faithful 
witness.     Since  He  is  the  faithful  witness,  it  is  assuredly  so. 

Further,  a  faithful  witness  to  truth  is  not  only  one  who 
accurately  communicates  it,  but  also  one  who  steadfastly  ad- 
heres to  it ;  and  in  this  way  likewise  Christ  was  the  faithful 
witness.  Faithfulness  is  shown  by  a  witness  not  only  in 
stating  the  thing  to  which  he  testifies  truthfully,  or  as  it 
really  is,  but  in  standing  firmly  and  keeping  honestly  to  what 
he  says — in  not  contradicting  his  testimony  in  word  or  deed, 
directly  or  indirectly — in  supporting  and  defending,  and  if 
need  be  suffering  for,  his  testimony.  The  Greek  word  trans- 
lated in  the  text  "witness"   originated  our  word   "martyr," 


44  THE    FAITHFUL   WITNESS. 

and  even  in  late  Greek  usage  bore  the  meaning  of  "  martyr," 
just  because  a  witness  is  one  who  ought  to  be,  and  who  is 
expected  to  be,  faithful  in  the  sense  now  explained.  This  late 
meaning  of  the  word  lay  in  it  in  germ,  as  it  were,  from  the 
first.  It  is  not,  indeed,  the  meaning  of  the  word  in  the  text. 
Christ  is  not  expressly  here  called  what  we  should  term  a 
martyr — that  is,  a  witness  whose  witnessing  lies  precisely  in 
His  suffering  and  dying;  but  in  His  being  called  "the  faithful 
witness,"  it  is  implied  that  He  was  such  a  witness  as  would  not 
evade  suffering  and  death  if  loyalty  to  the  truth  required  Him 
to  suffer  and  die.  And  such  a  witness  He  was.  The  will  of 
God  for  our  salvation  did  demand  that  He  should  suffer  and 
die ;  and  so  obedient  was  He  to  that  will  that  He  rejoiced  to 
do  it — so  loyal  was  He  to  the  truth  that  He  fulfilled  every 
iota  of  it,  every  step  and  stage  of  it,  although  it  was  a  long 
process  of  humiliation  and  pain,  ending  in  the  horrors  of 
Calvary.  To  bear  His  testimony  to  the  Father — that  glorious 
and  blessed  testimony  which  constitutes  the  Gospel — Christ, 
although  very  God  of  very  God,  took  on  Him  our  frail  human 
flesh  with  its  manifold  infirmities,  was  born  in  a  stable,  lived  a 
life  of  poverty  and  obscurity  in  a  Jewish  village  for  thirty 
years,  came  forth  publicly  among  men  only  to  be  despised  and 
persecuted,  and  was  at  last  put  to  death  on  the  cross.  It  was 
at  this  cost  that  He  bore  His  testimony;  and  he  bore  it  meekly, 
patiently,  with  perfect  resignation,  with  perfect  fidelity,  to  the 
very  end.  It  was  only  on  the  accursed  tree,  only  when  about 
to  bow  His  head  and  breathe  out  His  spirit,  that  He  could  say, 
"It  is  finished."  Truly  He  is  well  called  "  the  faithful  witness." 
If  so,  are  there  any  lessons  which  we  ought  to  draw  from 
this  fact?  Surely  there  is  at  least  this  very  great  and  very 
obvious  one — that  if  Christ  be  "the  faithful  witness,"  we  ought 
to  listen  to  Him — that  if  His  testimony  be  what  has  been 
described,  we  ought  to  receive  it.  If  for  this  very  purpose 
Christ  was  born,  if  for  this  very  cause  He  came  into  the  world, 
to  bear  witness  to  the  truth,  it  must  be  a  serious  and  terrible 
thing  for  us  to  reject  the  truth,  since  that  implies  that  we 
attempt  to  defeat  the  great  end  of  our  Lord's  incarnation  and 
mission — to  frustrate  the  righteous  and  blessed  will  of  God  in 
the  unspeakable  gift  of  His  Son.     We  cannot  do  so  without 


THE    FIRST-BEGOTTEN    OF   THE    DEAD.  45 

perversity  and  guilt.  You  remember  how  Christ  added  to  the 
declaration  before  Pilate  to  which  I  have  already  referred,  these 
words — "  Every  one  that  is  of  the  truth  heareth  my  voice." 
They  were  solemn  and  terrible  words  for  His  Jewish  accusers, 
who  hated  the  truth,  being  blinded  by  their  prejudices  and 
selfish  passions.  They  were  solemn  and  terrible  words  for 
Pilate  himself,  whose  very  question  "  What  is  truth  ?  "  showed 
that  he  cared  little  for  truth,  and  indeed  that  he  deemed  it 
only  a  sort  of  phantasm  which  deluded  the  ignorant  and  the 
enthusiastic,  but  which  cool,  clear  minds  like  his  own  could  see 
through,  and  see  to  be  only  an  empty  mockery.  They  are 
solemn  and  terrible  words  for  all  of  us  who  do  not  accept 
Christ's  testimony,  whether  our  rejection  of  it  be  due  to  preju- 
dice and  passion  akin  to  that  of  the  Jews,  or  to  a  scepticism 
akin  to  that  of  Pilate.  "Every  one  that  is  of  the  truth  heareth 
my  voice."  If  we  do  not  hear  the  voice  of  the  faithful  witness, 
let  us  beware  and  repent,  and  seek  another  mind  and  heart,  for 
our  disbelief  is  a  sign  that  we  are  not  "of  the  truth."  This  is 
the  condemnation  of  those  who  reject  Christ's  testimony,  the 
glorious  Gospel  of  Divine  love  and  grace,  that  through  per- 
versity of  nature  falsehood  is  more  pleasant  to  them  than  truth 
— that  owing  to  the  evil  which  is  in  them  they  prefer  darkness 
to  light. 

But  we  must  not  only  accept  the  truth  to  which  Christ 
testifies;  we  must  also  adhere  to  it,  after  the  example  which 
He  as  the  faithful  witness  has  set  us.  Whoever  shares  in  the 
spirit  which  He  manifested  in  witnessing  to  the  truth — the 
spirit  of  absolute  and  entire  devotion  to  it,  shown  in  His  never 
for  an  instant  departing  from  it,  but  following  it  onwards 
step  by  step  although  it  led  Him  steadily  to  the  cross — 
must  regard  the  truth  as  unspeakably  sacred,  must  feel  that 
to  tamper  with  it  is  distinctly  to  deny  his  Lord,  and  will 
not  cease  continually  to  strive  to  realise  it  more  perfectly  in 
the  inner  and  the  outer  man,  in  heart  and  life,  speech  and 
behaviour. 

The  second  title  given  to  our  Lord  in  the  text  is  "the 
first-begotten  of  the  dead" — "the  firstborn  from  the  dead." 
What  does  this  title  denote  ?     Obviously,  it  seems  to  me,  two 


46  THE    FIRST-BEGOTTEN    OF    THE    DEAD. 

tMngs.  The  first  is  seniority  of  birth.  The  firstborn  is  he 
who  is  born  first.  Christ  is  "the  firstborn  from  the  dead," 
because  the  first  who  rose  from  the  dead  to  eternal  life. 
This  is  literally  and  strictly  true,  according  to  the  repre- 
sentations of  Scripture,  although  there  had  been  resurrec- 
tions before  our  Lord's.  Elijah  and  Elisha  had  both  been 
honoured  to  raise  the  dead,  and  Christ  Himself  restored  to 
life  the  son  of  the  widow  of  Nain  and  called  forth  Lazarus 
from  his  grave ;  but  those  who  were  thus  raised  were  raised 
merely  to  a  temporal  and  earthly,  not  to  an  eternal  and 
heavenly  life.  They  were  delivered  out  of  the  hand  of  death 
after  it  had  closed  upon  them,  but  only  for  a  short  time : 
they  made  no  permanent  escape  from  its  power;  they  soon 
again  fell  under  its  sway ;  they  still  await  a  final  resurrection. 
Only  an  entirely  different  kind  of  resurrection  than  theirs — 
only  a  resurrection  like  Christ's  own — can  satisfy  hearts  long- 
ing for  a  true  immortality.  By  raising  Lazarus  from  the  dead 
our  Lord  showed  a  certain  degree  of  power  over  death ;  but 
only  by  rising  Himself  from  the  dead  that  He  might  live  for 
evermore,  was  death  shown  to  have  been  completely  conquered, 
alike  as  regards  the  body  and  the  soul.  He  was  the  first  who 
rose  in  the  body  to  eternal  life ;  the  first  who  so  rose,  and  the 
only  one  who  has  yet  so  risen,  as  those  who  aspire  to  eternal 
life  wish  to  rise.  This  is  one  reason  for  His  being  called  "  the 
firstborn  from  the  dead." 

It  is  not,  however,  the  chief  reason.  The  title  refers  more 
to  superiority  of  dignity  than  to  priority  of  time.  Christ  is 
"the  firstborn  from  the  dead,"  just  as  He  is,  according  to  the 
expression  of  St.  Paul,  "the  firstborn  of  every  creature." 
These  words  of  the  apostle  manifestly  imply  not  only  our 
Lord's  pre-existence  to  creation,  but  His  sovereignty  and 
heirship  over  creation.  They  mean  that  as  regards  creation 
Christ  holds  the  rank  of  firstborn  Son  ;  that  the  rights  and 
honours  of  primogeniture  belong  to  Him ;  that  He  is  the 
natural  and  actual  head  and  ruler  of  the  universe ;  that  as 
He  was  before,  so  is  He  above,  all  things.  But  as  He  is 
thus  first  with  respect  to  the  universe,  so  it  was  ordained 
that  He  should  become  first  with  respect  to  the  Church. 
Having  witnessed  to  the  truth  even  unto  death.  He  has  over- 


THE    FIRST-BEGOTTEN    OF   THE    DEAD.  47 

come  death,  and  been  put  in  the  same  relation  to  the  spiritual 
new  creation  brought  into  existence  through  the  truth  which 
He  always  held  to  the  natural  creation.  As  the  first-born  of 
the  dead  He  is  the  head  of  His  body  the  Church,  the  heir  in 
the  household  of  faith ;  as  pre-eminent  in  the  world  which  lies 
beyond  death — the  world  to  which  only  our  faith  and  hopes 
reach, — as  He  is  in  the  world  on  this  side  of  death — the 
world  which  our  eyes  see  and  our  hands  handle.  Having  died 
and  risen  again,  He  liveth  for  evermore,  the  firstborn  among 
many  brethren,  the  glorified  and  exalted  elder  brother,  in  whose 
honours  and  advantages  the  others  share,  bub  apart  from  whom 
they  have  nothing. 

Understood  as  has  now  been  explained,  this  title,  "the  first- 
begotten"  or  "the  firstborn"  "of  the  dead,"  naturally  follows 
the  former  title,  "the  faithful  witness,"  for  it  is  in  Christ's 
being  "the  firstborn  from  the  dead"  that  we  have  the  chief 
guarantee  for  His  being  "the  faithful  witness."  Our  Lord's 
resurrection,  which  involves  and  implies  His  deliverance  from 
death,  His  victory  over  hiui  who  had  the  power  of  death, 
and  his  elevation  to  the  throne  of  mediatorial  dominion,  is 
the  seal  of  God  to  the  truth  of  His  testimony.  It  is  a  con- 
spicuous sign  and  manifest  proof  that  the  Father  has  accepted 
and  approved  the  witness-bearing  of  the  Son. 

It  is  impossible  to  read  the  New  Testament  intelligently 
without  being  impressed  with  the  prominence  which  all  its 
writers  give  to  the  resurrection  as  their  warrant  for  maintain- 
ing Jesus  to  have  been  the  Messiah  and  Son  of  God.  With 
one  consenting  voice,  in  every  variety  of  form  and  on  all 
occasions,  they  put  it  forward  as  the  fact  which  proved  the 
truth  of  the  Gospel  they  preached — salvation  through  faith  in 
Christ.  The  apostles  went  forth  as  the  witnesses  of  the  resur- 
rection, fully  acknowledging  that  if  Christ  were  not  risen  the 
whole  Christian  faith  was  vain.  Could  the  unbelieving  Jews 
have  only  disproved  that  Christ  had  risen,  they  would  have 
had  no  trouble  with  Christianity.  This,  however,  they  could 
not  do,  and  consequently  Christianity  rapidly  spread.  Chris- 
tianity rose  out  of  the  conviction  that  Christ  had  risen.  The 
objections  urged  against  it  were  felt  by  men  of  candid  and 
ingenuous  minds  to  avail  little  if  the  truth  of  the  resurrection 


48  THE    FIRST-BEGOTTEN    OF    THE    DEAD. 

could  not  be  reasonably  called  in  question.  How  the  belief  in 
the  resurrection  of  Christ  followed  so  closely  on  His  crucifixion; 
how  it  spread  so  rapidly ;  how  those  who  had  every  interest 
to  deny  its  truth  dared  not  do  so,  but  allowed  it  to  pass 
unchallenged ;  and  how  it  produced  the  wonderful  revolution 
which  it  effected  on  the  minds  and  lives  of  individuals,  and 
in  the  religion  and  morality  of  the  world, — are  problems  which 
those  who  deny  the  reality  of  the  resurrection  and  the  authority 
of  the  Gospel,  of  which  it  was  the  most  convincing  confirma- 
tion, are  still  trying  to  explain,  and  are  still  signally  failing 
to  explain.  The  hypothesis  of  imposture  perpetrated  by  the 
disciples  is  now  abandoned  even  by  every  unbeliever  of  the 
least  mental  refinement  or  culture.  The  newer  hypotheses  of 
vision  and  of  myth — of  hallucination  and  of  imaginative  crea- 
tion— are  ludicrously  inadequate  to  account  for  the  facts  which 
demand  explanation.  They  only  make  it  more  apparent,  if 
possible,  than  before,  that  the  only  reasonable  and  sufficient 
explanation  of  these  facts  is  the  simple  one  that  He  who  was 
crucified,  dead,  and  buried,  verily  rose  again.  The  evidence 
which  we  have  for  Christ's  resurrection  will  be  found,  when 
conscientiously  examined,  to  be  absolutely  conclusive.  We 
may  almost  as  reasonably  deny  the  reality  of  His  crucifixion 
as  of  His  resurrection.  We  have  the  same  kind  of  evidence 
for  both ;  and  for  the  latter,  as  for  the  former,  the  evidence 
is  overwhelming  in  amount,  and  possessed  of  all  the  character- 
istics of  good  historical  evidence.  The  hypotheses  by  which 
it  has  been  attempted  to  account  for  belief  in  the  resurrection 
on  the  assumption  that  it  never  occurred,  might  be  equally 
applied  to  account  for  belief  in  the  crucifixion  on  the  same 
assumption.  Yet  even  the  most  reckless  historical  scepticism 
has  not  ventured  to  deny  the  reality  of  the  crucifixion.  Those 
who  disbelieve  that  Christ  rose  from  the  dead  should,  in  con- 
sistency, believe  very  few  historical  facts  of  any  kind.  But  if 
He  rose.  His  whole  testimony  as  regards  both  the  Father  and 
Himself  is  indubitable ;  the  divinity  of  His  Gospel  must  be 
unhesitatingly  accepted  ;  the  apostles  whom  He  sent  forth  were 
heralds  of  the  truth  and  ambassadors  of  the  grace  of  God ;  and 
the  Church  which  they  built  up  is  founded  on  an  immovable 
rock,  against  which  the  waves  of  infidelity  may  beat,  but  it 


THE    FIRST-BEGOTTEN    OF   THE    DEAD.  49 

will  only  be  to  make  more  manifest  the  contrast  between  its 
strength  and  their  impotence. 

It  was  not  merely,  however,  as  an  evidence  for  the  truth 
of  the  Gospel  that  our  Lord's  resurrection  was  so  frequently 
referred  to,  and  so  strongly  emphasised,  by  the  writers  of  the 
New  Testament.  It  does  not  seem  to  me  that  these  writers 
ever  record  any  fact  or  incident  merely  as  evidence.  I  know 
of  no  miracle,  for  example,  which  is  exclusively  evidential  and 
not  a  part  of  the  substance,  so  to  speak,  of  the  Gospel ;  which 
does  not  illustrate  and  convey  spiritual  principles  as  well  as 
serve  the  purpose  of  confirming  and  attesting  them.  And 
certainly  the  great  miracle  of  the  resurrection  is  no  mere 
warrant  of  the  faith,  but  also  itself  one  of  the  fundamental 
truths  of  the  faith.  The  apostles  continually  make  not  only 
an  apologetic  but  a  doctrinal  and  a  moral  use  of  it.  They 
represent  the  justification  of  the  sinner,  the  origination  and 
development  of  the  new  life,  and  the  final  glorification  of  the 
believer,  as  all  dependent  upon  it.  They  not  only  rest  on  it 
the  Messianic  claims  of  Jesus  in  so  far  as  they  were  a  response 
to  the  promises  of  prophecy  in  the  past,  but  they  point  to  it  as 
a  saving  and  sanctifying  power  in  the  present,  and  as  the 
foundation  of  all  hope  for  the  future.  They  view  it  as  neces- 
sary to  the  perfection  of  Christ's  humanity  and  to  the  com- 
pletion of  His  work ;  as  the  attainment  of  a  fully  developed 
life  in  the  richness  and  blessedness  of  which  every  believer 
is  to  share ;  as  the  leading  of  captivity  captive  and  receiving 
gifts  for  men ;  as  opening  to  the  eye  of  faith  and  hope  a 
boundless  vision  of  the  renovation  of  creation,  the  development 
of  the  powers  of  human  nature,  the  progress  of  the  Church, 
and  the  future  glory  of  the  whole  kingdom  of  God. 

It  is  to  be  feared  that  many  of  us  fail  to  follow  their  guid- 
ance in  this  respect  as  fully  as  we  ought.  It  is  to  be  feared 
that  we  often  give  to  the  resurrection  in  its  higher  and  more 
spiritual  relationships  far  too  subordinate  a  place  in  our  thoughts 
and  affections.  Some  who  have  a  firm  faith  in  Christ's  work 
of  atonement  feel  but  feebly  the  power  of  His  resurrection. 
They  seem  unable  to  look  beyond  His  death — beyond  the  cross 
and  the  grave.  They  realise  their  interest  in  His  sufferings 
and  humiliation  much  more  adequately  than  their  interest  in 

D 


50  THE    FIRST-BEGOTTEN    OF    THE    DEAD. 

His  honours  and  exaltation.  They  enter  but  little  intellectually, 
and  far  less  practically,  into  the  signification  of  those  numerous 
passages  of  the  Epistles  which  point  us  above  and  beyond  a 
mere  trust  in  the  death  and  the  atonement,  and  which  teach  us 
that  the  life  upon  which  Christ  entered  by  resurrection  from 
the  dead  is  the  life  in  which  we  must  know  Him,  in  which  we 
must  daily  converse  and  commune  with  Him,  from  which  our 
own  life  must  draw  its  supplies,  and  in  which  our  own  life 
must,  as  it  were,  be  hid. 

This  is  not  as  it  should  be,  and  it  is  sure  to  lead  to  weakness 
and  imperfection  of  Christian  character  and  Christian  conduct. 
"We  cannot  think  too  much  or  too  highly  of  the  atoning  death 
of  Christ ;  but  we  must  not  forget  that  the  resurrection  is  an 
equally  essential  fact  in  the  Gospel,  and  that  if  it  be  true  that 
Christ  died  for  our  sins,  it  is  no  less  true  that  He  rose  again  for 
our  justification,  and  that  we  are  saved  through  participation  in 
the  life  which  He  now  liveth  as  the  first-born  from  the  dead. 
The  death  of  Christ  was  but  a  stage  in  His  redemptive  work, 
and  we  can  only  view  it  aright  when  we  consider  it  not  only 
in  relation  to  the  stages  which  preceded  it,  but  to  those  which 
followed  it.  We  must  beware  lest,  with  less  excuse,  we  merit 
the  rebuke  of  the  angels  to  the  women, — "  Why  seek  ye  the 
living  among  the  dead  ?  He  is  not  here,  but  is  risen."  Yes, 
"He  is  risen,"  and  our  hearts  must  rise  up  to  Him;  our  faith, 
our  love,  our  hopes  must  follow  Him ;  our  souls  must  rejoice  to 
be  with  our  exalted  Brother.  "  He  is  risen ;  "  and  we  must 
seek  to  live  under  the  clear  light  and  full  glory  of  a  risen 
vSaviour.  "  He  is  risen ; "  and  it  is  for  us  to  endeavour  so  to 
die  with  Him,  and  so  to  rise  with  Him,  that  we  may  know  the 
comprehensiveness  and  depth  of  meaning  in  His  words,  "I  am 
the  resurrection  and  the  life." 

The  fact  that  Christ  is  "  the  first-begotten  of  the  dead  "  has, 
like  the  fact  that  He  is  "the  faithful  witness,"  its  special  lesson. 
If  He  be  risen,  we  ought  to  rise  with  Him  into  newness  of  life. 
The  Christian  ought  to  be  so  one  with  Christ  as  to  die  with 
Him  unto  sin,  and  live  with  Him  by  a  new  birth  unto  righteous- 
ness. He  ought  to  have  his  affections  set  on  things  above, 
where  Christ  sitteth  at  the  right  hand  of  God ;  to  have  his  life 
hid  with  Christ  in  God,  that  when  Christ  his  life  shall  appear. 


THE    PRINCE    OF   THE    KINGS    OF   THE    EARTH.         51 

he  also  may  appear  with  Him  in  glory.  Let  us,  then,  live  with 
His  life ;  let  us  rise  to  newness  of  life  by  living  to  Him  ;  for 
only  so, — only  through  the  oneness  of  our  lives  with  His  life — 
only  through  the  participation  of  our  spirits  in  His  Spirit, — can 
we  become  heirs  of  eternal  life.  If  we  would  meet  death,  and 
triumph,  it  must  be  through  that  spiritual  union  with  Christ 
which  will  secure,  that  as  He  has  risen  from  the  dead,  so  we 
shall  rise  to  follow  Him  and  to  be  for  ever  with  Him.  No 
otherwise  will  it  be  given  us  to  say,  0  Death,  where  is  thy 
sting  ?  0  Grave,  where  is  thy  victory  ? 

The  text  gives  to  our  Lord  yet  another  title.  "The  faithful 
witness  "  has  not  only  become  "  the  firstborn  from  the  dead,"  the 
Head  of  His  body  the  Church,  the  Leader  and  Lord  of  those 
who  are  redeemed  by  His  blood  and  sanctified  by  His  Spirit, 
but  He  has  risen  to  the  throne  of  universal  empire — has  all 
power  assigned  to  Him  in  heaven  and  on  earth,  and  a  name 
given  Him  above  every  name.  "  He  is  the  Prince  of  the  kings 
of  the  earth." 

"My  kingdom,"  He  said,  "is  not  of  this  world;"  yet  in 
saying  so  He  claimed  to  be  a  king  and  to  have  a  kingdom. 
The  central  idea — the  burden  and  tenor — of  all  His  teaching, 
was  that  of  "  a  kingdom  " — "the  kingdom  of  God  "  or  "king- 
dom of  heaven."  All  that  He  said  related  to  its  conditions, 
laws,  government,  service,  antecedents,  or  consequences ;  all 
that  He  did  was  with  a  view  to  its  foundation  and  diffusion. 
Of  the  Church  itself  He  said  but  little ;  indeed  He  expressly 
spoke  of  it,  so  far  as  we  can  learn  from  the  Gospels,  by  the 
term  "  Church "  only  twice.  It  is  most  instructive  that  He 
should  have  dwelt  so  incessantly  and  so  emphatically  as  He  did 
on  the  kingdom  of  God.  and  that  He  should  have  touched  so 
seldom  and  so  lightly  on  the  Church.  That  He  should  have 
done  so  is  no  evidence  that  the  Church  is  an  unimportant 
institution,  or  that  correct  views  regarding  it  are  unimportant ; 
but  it  is  evidence  that  the  Church,  and  the  doctrines  which 
directly  refer  to  the  Church,  are  secondary  and  not  primary, 
subordinate  and  not  fundamental.  The  Church  must  be  rooted 
in  and  spring  from  the  kingdom  of  God.  The  doctrine  as  to 
the  Church  must  be  determined  by  the  doctrine  as  to  the 


52    THE  PRINCE  OF  THE  KINGS  OF  THE  EARTH. 

kingdom  of  God.  It  was  the  doctrine  of  the  kingdom  which 
Christ  Himself  taught ;  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  He  left 
mainly  to  others  to  teach,  or  rather  to  evolve  from  the  prin- 
ciples which  He  had  expounded  as  to  the  kingdom.  Those  who 
put  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  in  the  foreground,  and  find  in 
this  doctrine  a  rule  and  test  by  which  to  measure  and  judge  all 
other  doctrines,  have  profited  little  by  His  teaching.  It  was 
strikingly  devoid  of  churchliness.  It  was  so  filled  with  the 
kingdom  as  to  reserve  for  the  Church  merely  a  ministerial  or 
instrumental  position.  The  Church,  as  Christ's  institution, 
exists  solely  for  the  sake  of  the  kingdom ;  it  accomplishes  its 
end  only  in  the  measure  in  which  it  extends  and  builds  up  the 
kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  To  identify  it  with  the  kingdom  is 
to  confound  the  means  with  the  end — to  disregard  the  very 
letter  of  Christ's  teaching — to  contradict  its  whole  spirit  and 
character — and  to  deny  His  real  claims  to  kingship. 

Christ  is  king  of  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  and  there- 
fore "  prince "  or  "  ruler "  of  the  kings  of  the  earth.  His 
kingdom  claims  to  comprehend  the  State  as  well  as  the 
Church.  The  ecclesiastical  and  the  civU  ought  to  be  only  two 
aspects  of  it.  Churches  and  governments  are  alike,  of  right, 
subject  to  it,  and  are  both,  in  fact,  often  rebellious  towards 
it.  His  kingdom  extends  to  all  the  spheres  and  phases  of  life ; 
it  transcends  all  limits  of  race  and  language,  of  time  and 
space  ;  it  combines  earth  and  heaven ;  it  is  deep  and  broad 
as  the  truth,  and  the  will,  and  the  love  of  God ;  yea,  it  is 
just  the  manifestation  of  God's  truth,  the  doing  of  God's  will, 
the  working  of  God's  love,  through  the  Son,  in  all  the  pro- 
vinces of  existence.  No  individual  may  blamelessly  withdraw 
a  single  faculty  of  mind  or  power  of  body  from  the  service  of 
this  kingdom  ;  no  Church  on  earth  has  any  right  specially  to 
identify  its  claims  with  those  of  this  kingdom ;  no  state  or 
government  on  earth  ought  to  dare  to  separate  itself  from, 
or  assert  independence  of,  this  kingdom.  The  King  of  it  is 
Lord  over  all, — King  of  kings, — Prince  of  the  kings  of  the 
earth, — entitled  to  wear  on  His  brow  all  the  crowns  of  the 
universe.  Most  foolish  are  they  who,  whatever  be  the  depart- 
ment of  thought  or  action,  of  life  or  work,  in  which  they  are 
engaged,  venture  to  say  that  within  it  "they  will  not  have 


THE    PRINCE    OF    THE    KINGS    OF    THE    EARTH.         53 

this  Man  to  rule  over  them."  He  has  a  right  to  rule  every- 
where, and  in  the  end  will  rule  everywhere.  No  opposition, 
no  resistance,  will  in  the  long-run  avail  to  set  His  rule  aside. 
His  rule  is  the  law  of  the  universe ;  and  every  man,  every 
Church,  every  nation,  must  be  tried  by  it  and  judged  by  it. 
All  who  have  reigned  in  this  world — all  who  have  exerted 
power  and  influence  over  others — must  appear  before  His 
tribunal,  to  be  condemned  if  they  have  disobeyed  Him,  and 
to  be  approved  if  they  have  served  Him.  Caesar,  to  whom  in 
the  days  of  His  humiliation  He  paid  tribute ;  Caiaphas,  in 
whose  presence  He  was  buffeted ;  and  Pilate,  who  basely 
banded  Him  over  to  death, — will  be  there.  Every  hostile 
potentate,  and  every  friendly  potentate,  will  be  there ;  every 
rebellious  subject,  and  every  loyal  subject,  will  be  there.  "  Be 
wise  now  therefore,  0  ye  kings;  be  instructed,  ye  judges  of 
the  earth.  Serve  the  Lord  with  fear,  and  rejoice  with  trem- 
bling. Kiss  the  Son,  lest  He  be  angry,  and  ye  perish  from 
the  way,  when  His  wrath  is  kindled  but  a  little.  Blessed  are 
all  they  that  put  their  trust  in  Him." 

It  is  a  solemn  thought,  and  yet  a  most  consoling  and 
encouraging  thought,  that  Christ  is  thus  "  Prince  of  the 
kings  of  the  earth."  There  are  times  when  men  are  tempted 
to  believe  that  physical  force,  or  human  arbitrariness,  craft, 
and  ambition,  rule  the  world, — that  there  is  nothing  more 
powerful  than  the  wills  of  monarchs,  and  the  schemes  of  poli- 
ticians, and  the  passions  of  the  peoples, — that  Providence  is 
always  on  the  side  of  full  treasuries,  and  big  battalions,  and 
the  subtlest  brains — or  that  if  there  be  a  Divine  Providence 
beneath  these  things,  it  is  stern,  retributive,  vindictive,  in- 
different to  the  fates  of  individuals,  without  sympathy  for 
our  sufferings  or  sorrows.  But  the  suspicion  is  a  false  one. 
That  which  is  deepest  in  the  universe,  the  text  lets  us  know, 
is  the  truth,  the  eternal  truth,  to  which  Christ  came  to  bear 
witness,  and  which  He  could  declare  Himself  to  be.  He  who 
is  on  the  throne  of  the  universe  is  He  who,  in  infinite  com- 
passion, gave  Himself  to  death  for  us,  but  who  has  risen  again 
and  now  reigneth  for  evermore  :  the  principles  manifested  in 
His  character,  and  proclaimed  in  His  Gospel,  are  the  true 
laws  of  the  universe.     Whatever  may  appear  to  the  contrary, 


54    THE  PRINCE  OF  THE  KINGS  OF  THE  EAETH. 

chance,  force,  unbending-  and  unpitying  fate,  human  caprice 
and  human  selfishness,  justice  exclusive  of  affection,  and  retri- 
bution which  has  its  end  in  itself,  so  far  from  being  what  is 
mightiest  in  the  government  of  the  universe,  are  illusions  and 
abstractions,  or  merely  secondary  and  instrumental  agencies, 
or  are  limited  and  restricted  in  their  range  of  action  ;  while  the 
absolute  beginning,  controlling  power,  and  final  purpose  of  that 
government  are  only  to  be  found  in  the  truth  which  comprehends 
perfect  wisdom, perfect  righteousness, and  perfect  love — the  truth 
embodied  and  exhibited  in  Christ.  This  it  is  which  underlies 
the  world,  determines  its  history,  and  is  the  goal  to  which  it 
is  moving ;  on  this  hang  the  whole  heavens  and  the  whole 
earth :  and  therefore  may  we  be  assured  that,  however  dark 
and  perplexed  things  may  at  times  seem,  they  will  not  fail 
to  be  guided  to  a  right,  and  gracious,  and  holy  issue.  "  Truth 
is  great,  and  it  will  prevail."  Oh  what  an  increase  of  meaning, 
of  confirmation,  and  of  efficacy  does  this  ancient  adage  obtain, 
when  the  truth  is  identified  with  Jesus  Christ,  and  Jesus  Christ 
is  known  to  be  the  Ruler  of  the  universe !  Who  that  ade- 
quately realises  this  can  faint  or  fail  ?  Does  it  not  imply  that 
every  noble  cause,  be  it  of  liberty,  or  truth,  or  religion,  must 
conquer  in  the  end,  since  those  who  struggle  for  it  are  on  the 
side  of  the  King  of  kings  ? 

The  value  of  this  truth  of  Christ's  kingship  our  forefathers 
knew  well.  The  glory  of  it  shone  with  dazzling  brightness 
before  the  eyes  of  the  heroes  and  martyrs  of  the  Covenants, 
sustaining  them  under  their  sufferings  and  inspiring  them  in 
their  struggles.  It  is  this  which,  above  all  else,  gives  to  their 
history  its  imperishable  attractiveness  and  its  imperishable 
worth.  But  I  greatly  fear  that  in  later  times,  through  con- 
fused and  wearisome  controversies,  we  have  wellnigh  reasoned 
ourselves  out  of  the  faith  in  which  they  lived  and  died ;  for 
many  in  Scotland  seem  to  have  come  to  think  that  outside  of 
the  Church  secularism  is  the  true  theory  of  things,  and  not  a 
few  appear  to  fancy  that  the  sovereignty  of  Christ  is  only 
a  something  which  may  be  pleaded  to  secure  ecclesiastical 
arbitrariness  from  review  and  ecclesiastical  arrogance  from 
restraint.  Oh  that  we  would  cast  off  the  narrow  formulas  of 
recent  strifes,  the   distinctive  shibboleths  of   our   immediate 


THE   PRINCE    OF   THE    KINGS    OF   THE    EARTH.         0  0 

past,  and  that  we  would  apprehend,  in  its  natural  breadth  and 
fulness,  the  glorious  certitude  that,  although  Christ  can  never 
condescend  to  be  a  king  of  the  earth,  He  cannot  but  be,  in 
virtue  of  His  absolute  truth,  righteousness,  and  goodness,  the 
Ruler  of  all  the  kings  of  the  earth !  Oh  that,  with  faith  in 
this  truth  as  firm  as  that  of  our  forefathers,  and  with  greater 
patience,  greater  charity,  and  the  greater  light  in  some  re- 
spects of  modern  times,  we  were  all  of  us — the  highest  and 
the  humblest,  clergy  and  laity,  men  and  women — to  act  on 
it  in  our  various  spheres  of  life  and  work,  by  trying  to  make 
what  of  Scotland  we  can  influence  really  and  thoroughly  a  part 
of  Christ's  kingdom  !  Were  we  so  to  do,  many  a  martyr's  pro- 
phecy, sealed  in  blood,  to  the  effect  that  the  Covenants  would  be 
Scotland's  revival,  would  yet  meet  with  substantial  fulfilment. 

"  Prince  of  the  kings  of  the  earth  "  is  the  greatest  of  the 
titles  which  the  text  assigns  to  our  Lord,  and  the  lesson  which 
flows  from  it  is  the  most  comprehensive.  He  who  has  uni- 
versal sway  claims  a  universal  obedience.  He  demands  from 
every  individual,  every  household,  every  society,  every  Church, 
every  nation,  a  strict  and  steady  conformity  to  the  truth  and 
justice,  the  purity  and  sanctity,  the  benevolence  and  benefi- 
cence, which  are  the  laws  of  His  kingdom.  What  He  demands 
may  we  all  rejoice  to  give.  Soul  and  body — heart  and  life — 
every  energy  and  every  affection — let  us  sincerely,  lovingly, 
and  completely  give. 

I  have  sought  simply  to  explain  my  text.  I  have  wished  to 
say  nothing  except  what  it  says.  I  know  well  that  I  have 
expressed  merely  a  small  part  of  what  it  means.  What  is 
most  essential  in  it,  however,  lies  on  the  very  surface. 

The  text  assigns  three  glorious  titles  to  our  Lord,  from  which 
three  great  lessons  plainly  follow.  He  is  "  the  faithful  witness ; " 
therefore  let  us  hear  His  voice,  accept  His  testimony,  and  re- 
ceive His  revelation  of  the  Father.  He  is  "  the  firstborn  from 
the  dead ; "  therefore  let  us,  through  communion  with  Him, 
rise  with  Him  and  live  with  Him.  He  is  "  the  Prince  of  the 
kings  of  the  earth ; "  therefore  let  us  carefully  keep  His 
laws,  labour  faithfully  as  His  servants,  and  fight  manfully  as 
His  soldiers.  May  the  Lord  seal  by  His  grace  these  lessons  on 
our  hearts !     Amen. 


V. 

"THE    EARTH    IS    THE    LORD'S."  i 

"  In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heaven  and  the  earth." — Gen.  i.  1. 

"The  earth  is  the  Lord's,  and  the  fulness  thereof;  the  world,  and  they  that 

dwell  therein :  for  He  hath  founded  it  upon  the  seas,  and  established  it 

upon  the  floods."' — PsALM  xxiv.  1,  2. 

THE  best  of  God's  gifts  are  often  those  which  are  least 
valued.  We  are  apt  to  be  unthankful  to  Him  for  such 
things  as  the  light  of  the  sun,  water  and  air,  our  daily  bread 
and  nightly  rest,  for  no  other  reason  than  that  they  are  so 
common.  But  why  are  they  so  common  ?  Only  because  they 
are  so  precious  that  God,  in  His  kindness,  puts,  and  has  always 
been  putting,  all  His  children  in  possession  of  them.  They  are 
common  because  men  could  not  live  without  them,  or  could 
only  live  in  misery.  If  familiarity  with  them  has  unfortunately 
bred  in  us  contempt  for  them,  it  is  the  very  extent  of  God's 
liberality  to  us  which  has  been  the  occasion  of  our  ingratitude 
to  Him. 

It  is  quite  the  same  with  truths  as  it  is  with  things.  When- 
ever a  truth  becomes  very  common — whenever,  that  is  to  say, 
it  is  put  by  Divine  Providence  into  the  minds  of  all — we  begin 
to  neglect  it,  and  to  forget  that  God  should  be  praised  for  it. 
When  we  hear  of  some  new  and  marvellous  discovery  of  science, 
or  of  some  of  those  magnificent  practical  applications  of  science 
which  form  so  characteristic  a  feature  of  the  present  age,  we 
stand  rapt  in  wonder  and  adoration.  "  Glory  to  God  in  the 
highest,"  is  the  spontaneous  utterance  of  our  souls.  But  at 
the  same  time  we  may  forget,  or  fail  to  appreciate,  old  truths 
far  more  precious,  perhaps,  than  the  grandest  discoveries  of 
modern  science,  and  far  more  useful  than  its  happiest 
applications. 

^  Preached  in  the  East  Church,  Aberdeen,  on  Sabbath,  September  18,  1859, 

and  published  by  request  of  Members  of  Committee  of  the  British  Association. 

56 


"THE    EARTH    IS   THE    LORD's."  57 

Now,  it  is  right  to  give  all  honour  to  those  who  discover  new 
truths.  Honour  to  those  whom  God  has  made  honourable : 
and  God  has  certainly  done  high  honour  to  a  man  when  He 
allows  him,  first  among  all  the  children  of  men,  to  look  with 
clear  vision  on  any  great  law  that  has  been  operating  from  the 
creation,  but  of  which  intellect  has  not  been  able  hitherto  to 
take  any  account.  God  has  made  a  new  revelation  of  Himself 
to  that  man,  and  he  may  well  feel  that  he  is  in  a  sense  God's 
prophet  to  his  fellow-men,  and  we  may  well  be  grateful  for  the 
gift  which  God  has  made  to  us  in  him,  and  in  the  truth  re- 
vealed to  us  through  him.  But  neither  he  nor  we  should 
forget  that  there  have  been  prophets  before  him  with  still 
more  precious  messages  to  mankind  than  any  which  science 
can  now  disclose  ;  and  that  the  grandest  physical  discoveries — 
those  which  most  largely  extend  man's  power  over  the  material 
world  —  do  not  equal  in  importance  some  of  those  old  and 
familiar  truths  which  yield  direct  and  immediate  guidance  to 
the  spiritual  life,  which  throw  a  clear  light  on  the  mysteries  of 
onr  own  destinies,  or  tell  us  with  precision  the  duties  of  each 
day  as  it  arises. 

It  is  to  one  of  those  old  and  familiar  yet  pre-eminently 
useful  truths  that  I  wish  to  direct  your  attention  at  this  time, 
not  with  any  view  to  prove  it,  for  probably  none  of  you  doubt 
or  deny  it,  but  with  a  view  to  helping  you  to  feel  in  due 
measure  the  value  of  it,  which  probably  most  of  you  are  far 
from  doing. 

No  one  of  us  is  ignorant  of  it.  We  have  all  known  it  from 
our  infancy.  We  cannot  tell  when  we  heard  it  for  the  first 
time.  From  the  earliest  dawn  of  reason  in  us  we  were  taught 
that  God  made  us ;  that  a  wise  and  holy  Being,  who  loves  us, 
was  our  Creator,  and  the  author  of  all  that  exists.  And  what 
we  were  taught  we  believed,  and  still  believe.  However  many 
of  our  early  beliefs  we  may  have  outgrown  and  cast  off,  there 
are  few  of  us  who  have  been  so  unhappy  as  to  lose,  so  unwise 
as  to  reject,  that  precious  portion  of  our  childhood's  faith,  a 
belief  in  the  sacred  and  ennobling  truth  that  "  In  the  begin- 
ning God  created  the  heaven  and  the  earth," — that  "the  earth 
is  the  Lord's,  and  the  fulness  thereof;  the  world,  and  they 
that  dwell  therein." 


58  "the  earth  is  the  lord's." 

But  while  we  may  all  know  and  believe  this  truth,  nothing 
is  more  likely  than  that  owing  to  its  very  commonness  and  our 
famiUarity  with  it,  we  may  realise  most  inadequately  the  worth 
of  it,  and  feel  very  little  of  that  gratitude  to  God  for  the 
revelation  of  it  which  we  ought  to  feel.  Therefore  it  is  that  I 
wish  to  speak  to  you  of  its  worth  and  its  uses. 

It  is  not  even  yet  a  truth  known  to  all  the  peoples  of  the 
earth.  It  was  once  unknown,  or  almost  unknown,  on  earth. 
It  is  not  a  truth  which  any  man  if  left  to  himself  would  be 
sure,  or  even  likely,  to  find  out.  Millions  have  lived  and  died 
without  finding  it  out ;  millions  are  still  living  and  dying  in 
ignorance  of  it.  Men  as  able  as  the  ablest  of  those  who  are 
living  on  the  earth  in  the  present  day  have  sought  for  it, 
grasped  and  striven  after  it,  amidst  the  darkness,  and  yet  not 
been  blessed  with  its  light.  There  have  been  great  men — 
giants  in  the  intellectual  world  —  men  whose  names  and 
memories  scholars  and  thinkers  still,  after  the  lapse  of  many 
centuries,  cherish  and  venerate  as  those  of  their  profonndest 
and  most  stimulating  teachers ;  and  yet  powerful  as  those  men 
were  in  intellect,  and  noble  as  they  were  in  heart,  they  failed, 
with  all  their  painful  and  anxious  searchings,  to  attain  to  a 
clear  knowledge  of  God  as  the  alone  Creator  and  Lord  of 
nature. 

The  world  owes  such  knowledge,  not  exclusively  indeed,  but 
mainly,  yea,  almost  entirely  to  God's  education  of  the  Hebrew 
people  and  His  inspiration  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  and  psalm- 
ists, or,  in  other  words,  to  that  revelation  of  Himself  of  which 
we  have  the  product  and  expression  in  the  Old  Testament. 

But  think  how  much  the  world  thus  owes,  how  vast  its  in- 
debtedness, from  what  a  host  of  errors  such  knowledge  has 
freed  it,  what  a  flood  of  light  it  has  let  in  upon  it,  what  life, 
and  strength,  and  hope,  it  has  brought  to  it. 

Whatever  man  or  nation  has  learned  to  know  that  the 
heavens  and  the  earth  are  the  creatures  and  subjects  of  God,  is 
thereby  necessarily  delivered  from  all  the  errors  of  polytheism, 
from  bondage  to  false  gods,  from  the  debasing  worship  of  idols, 
from  the  intellectual  and  moral  darkness  of  heathendom.  On 
that  man  and  nation  a  great  light  has  arisen,  a  terrible  night, 
filled   with  hideous   spectres   and   haunting  fears,   has  passed 


"the  earth  is  the  lord's."  59 

away,  and  a  serene  day  shines.  They  can  walk  with  the 
freedom,  the  safety,  the  joyousness,  of  those  who  are  in  the 
light.  They  see  that  in  nature  there  is  nothing  to  deify,  and 
yet  that  nature  is  full  of  Divine  life  and  energy,  of  Divine 
beauty  and  goodness.  They  are  strong  in  the  Lord  the  true 
God,  and  so  tremble  not  nor  grovel  before  any  other  gods  or 
lords. 

It  is  also  only  through  realising  the  truth  affirmed  in  our 
texts  that  the  chief  and  most  dangerous  forms  of  false  specula- 
tion are  deprived  of  their  power  to  seduce,  ensnare,  and  destroy. 
He  who  believes  in  God  as  the  Creator  and  ruler  of  the  universe 
can  be  neither  atheist,  materialist,  nor  pantheist.  His  faith  is 
directly  antagonistic  to  that  of  those  who  suppose  that  there 
is  no  God ;  that  matter  explains  itself,  and  that  there  is  nothing 
else ;  or  that  some  indeterminate  substance  or  impersonal  force 
has  originated  all  that  exists.  The  only  sure  protection  against 
any  error  is  possession  of  the  truth  which  contradicts  it ;  the 
only  sure  preservative  against  the  power  of  those  imposing 
systems  of  error  to  which  I  refer,  and  from  the  consequences 
which  they  involve,  and  which  must  be  so  inevitably  ruinous 
to  the  moral  life  alike  of  individuals  and  of  societies,  is  a  firm, 
well-grounded,  carefully  tested  faith  in  the  truth  which  is  so 
plainly  laid  down  in  the  first  verse  of  our  Bibles. 

Then,  this  faith  in  God  as  the  Creator  is  the  necessary  basis 
of  all  higher  spiritual  faith.  It  is  only  in  virtue  of  so  believing 
in  God  that  we  can  also  believe  in  Him  as  a  Heavenly  Father, 
as  one  who  reveals  Himself  in  the  soul  of  man,  in  the  history 
of  the  world,  in  the  experiences  of  the  pious.  He  cannot  be  a 
Christian  who  is  not  a  Theist.  The  Christian  faith, — faith  in 
the  love  and  mercy,  salvation  and  kingdom  of  God,  as  revealed 
through  the  teaching  and  work  of  Christ, — could  have  been 
built  on  no  other  foundation  than  on  that  knowledge  of  God  as 
the  Creator  and  Lord  of  the  Universe  into  which  ancient  Israel 
was  divinely  guided  and  educated  to  the  benefit  and  blessing 
of  all  the  nations  of  the  earth. 

I  do  not  wish  to  dwell  longer,  however,  on  such  aspects  of 
the  truth  under  consideration  as  those  just  indicated,  important 
although  they  be.  Nor  shall  I  attempt  at  all  to  show  how  in 
this  truth  alone  scientific  and  philosophic  inquiry  and  thought 


60  "the  earth  is  the  lord's." 

can  find  unity  and  self-consistency,  rest  and  satisfaction, 
although  this  also  might  be  made  to  appear  a  very  good  and 
evident  reason  for  our  highly  valuing  it. 

In  what  remains  to  be  said  I  shall  confine  myself  to  pointing 
out  how  knowledge  of  the  truth  in  question  ought  so  to  affect 
our  mode  of  contemplating  the  universe,  of  viewing  nature, 
as  to  make  the  universe  a  source  of  spiritual  discipline  and 
improvement  to  us,  as  to  make  nature  religiously  helpful  to  us. 

This  is  not  a  small  matter.  It  is  possible,  indeed,  to  expect  in 
this  respect  too  much  from  nature.  There  are  some  who  seem  to 
think  that  if  the  spirits  of  our  pent-up,  toil-worn,  city  workmen 
could  only  be  brought  into  frequent  contact  with  the  clear  skies 
and  green  fields  most  defects  and  diseases  of  their  souls  would 
be  remedied  and  healed.  They  seem  to  think  that  nature 
might  serve  to  them  as  a  substitute  for  the  Gospel.  This,  of 
course,  is  foolishness.  Those  who  think  so  forget  both  the 
natural  darkness  and  the  natural  depravity  of  the  human  heart. 
They  overlook  that  although  nature  may  in  some  degree  lead 
us  to  look  aright  on  the  Gospel,  the  Gospel  is  in  a  far  higher 
degree  needed  to  enable  us  to  look  aright  upon  nature.  Pure 
eyes  and  Christian  hearts  can  alone  apprehend  the  heavenly 
truths  which  the  book  of  creation  imparts. 

But  there  is  a  contrary  and  more  prevalent  error.  It  is  the 
undue  depreciation  of  nature.  It  is  the  forgetting  that  it 
has  spiritual  uses  at  all ;  that  it  is  meant  to  have  any  real 
function  in  our  religious  education.  There  are  many,  it  is  to 
be  feared,  who  thus  err ;  who  think  and  act  frequently  or 
habitually  as  if  the  universe  were  but  a  stall  for  provender — a 
place  for  the  supply  of  our  physical  wants ;  who  never  realise 
that  it  too  is  a  revelation,  and  that  if  Nature  be  not  complete 
without  the  Gospel,  neither  is  the  Gospel  complete  without 
Nature.  But,  surely,  this  glorious  universe  was  never  made 
merely  to  satisfy  the  lower  or  animal  needs  of  our  souls,  to 
fill  us  with  food  when  hungry,  with  drink  when  thirsty,  and 
the  like.  And  indeed,  if  in  truth,  as  our  texts  assert,  God's 
creation,  God's  universe,  it  must  be  also  the  manifestation 
of  God,  and  address  itself  to  what  is  highest,  divinest,  most 
spiritual  in  us. 

A  few  brief  remarks  may  help  you  to  realise  this. 


"the  earth  is  the  lord's."  61 

In  the  first  place,  then,  the  world,  being  recognised  to  be  the 
work  and  manifestation  of  God,  is  necessarily  invested  with  a 
deep  religious  awe,  a  solemn  religious  significance. 

You  are  aware  what  an  important  fact  in  the  Christian 
system  is  the  indwelling  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  souls  of 
true  believers ;  what  an  encouragement  and  incentive  it  is  to 
keep  your  hearts  pure  and  holy,  and  to  present  your  bodies 
unto  God  as  a  living  sacrifice,  acceptable  and  undefiled.  It 
is  its  final,  its  crowning  trnth  ;  a  fact  which  gives  it  an  im- 
measurable superiority  over  every  previous  revelation  of  God 
made  to  the  patriarchs  and  prophets ;  an  inexhaustible  source 
of  virtue  and  holiness. 

But  what  this  truth  does  for  the  Gospel,  the  fact  that  "the 
earth  is  the  Lord's "  does  for  religion  in  general.  God's 
presence  with  Nature  causes  the  Christian  to  regard  it  with 
religious  feelings,  less  deep  perhaps,  but  essentially  the  same 
in  kind,  as  the  Spirit's  presence  with  all  saints  makes  him  look 
upon  his  own  body.  The  emotion  in  the  former  case  is  not 
so  powerful,  but  its  objects  are  innumerable  and  boundless. 
In  the  latter  case  it  is  stronger,  but  the  objects  are  fewer  and 
limited.  The  presence  of  the  Third  Person  of  the  Trinity  to 
our  hearts  ought  not,  however,  to  make  us  forget  the  presence 
of  the  First  Person  to  all  things.  Nay,  we  may  venture  to  say, 
that  if  the  truth  that  "the  earth  is  the  Lord's"  will  not  make 
Nature  solemn  and  sacred  to  us,  we  shall  be  unmoved  by  the 
other  truth,  that  we  are  a  peculiar  people  in  Christ  Jesus, 
through  the  indwelling  of  the  Spirit. 

It  is  impossible  for  a  rightly-constituted  heart  to  feel  the 
close  connection  of  all  things  with  the  invisible  and  almighty 
God,  and  yet  not  look  upon  them  as  bound  to  be  consecrated 
only  to  noble  uses.  The  very  thought  changes  at  once  the 
universe  into  a  great  temple  for  praise  and  worship  of  the 
Eternal,  and  all  the  bounties  of  Nature  into  gifts  to  be  laid 
upon  His  altar.  This  is  surely  no  small  matter,  but  the  one 
all-important  matter.  It  is  just  religion  brought  really  into 
all  that  we  do.  It  is  just  life  made  a  long  act  of  worship ; 
the  meanest  things  among  which  we  move  made  sacred ;  so 
that  the  very  stones  of  the  street  and  the  trees  of  the  field 
witness  to  us  about  God. 


62  "the  earth  is  the  lord's." 

In  the  second  place,  the  fact  that  "  the  earth  is  the  Lord's  " 
is  a  source  of  pure  and  holy  joy,  from  which  we  may  draw 
whenever  we  look  upon  anything  in  Nature  that  is  fair  and 
well  fitted  to  fulfil  the  end  of  its  creation. 

When  a  man  looks  upon  the  fields  in  autumn,  laden  with 
yellow  grain  rich  and  ripe  for  the  harvest,  he  cannot  help 
feeling  the  beauty  and  pleasantness  of  the  sight ;  and  when  he 
thinks  how  many  mouths  they  will  fill  with  food  and  gladness 
throughout  the  land,  he  must  be  cold-hearted  indeed  if  he 
does  not  feel  gratified  by  reflecting  on  the  amount  of  happi- 
ness that  will  thus  be  diffused  among  his  fellow-men.  All  this, 
however,  a  man  might  feel  without  any  knowledge  of  the  truth 
that  God  is  the  Creator  and  Lord  of  all  things ;  but  teach  him 
so,  and  not  only  will  he  feel  all  that  I  have  just  said,  but  over  and 
above,  he  will  see  in  these  harvest-fields  a  sign  of  the  wondrous 
love  which  the  Father  in  Heaven  bears  to  even  the  humblest 
of  His  children  on  earth.  He  will  learn  to  trace  out  in  all 
the  visible  forms  of  creation  the  glorious  character  of  their 
invisible  Author  and  Possessor.  All  that  is  lovely  in  earth 
and  heaven  will  be  felt  more  lovely  still,  because  it  speaks 
of  a  beauty  and  perfection  lying  beyond  the  range  of  the  eye 
of  flesh,  but  within  the  range  of  faith — a  beauty  and  perfection 
infinite  and  inexpressible. 

Thus  the  religious  man  —  the  man  who  practically  and 
abidingly  realises  the  truth  of  my  text — sees  in  Nature  more 
than  any  other  man.  The  knowledge  that  God  is  its  Creator 
and  Lord  raises  him  far  above  itself.  It  makes  the  earth 
one  great  symbol  of  heaven — the  visible  of  the  invisible.  It 
brings  the  human  mind  into  contact  with  an  infinitely  higher 
and  better  world.  The  godless  man,  the  religiously  indifferent 
man,  sees  no  more  than  half  of  what  the  godly  man  sees ; 
and  that  half  is  certainly  the  lowest  and  least  valuable  half. 
In  this  respect  the  godly  man  alone  is  a  complete,  an  entire 
man ;  the  godless  man  is  but  half  a  man. 

The  importance  of  this  truth  cannot  be  over-estimated. 
It  shows  that  we  need  not  abandon  the  pursuits  of  ordinary 
life  to  enjoy  the  delights  of  a  religious  life.  It  shows  that 
all  that  we  need  is  a  vivid,  lasting,  operative  feeling — a  steady, 
practical  conviction — of  the  connection  between  heaven  and 


"the  earth  is  the  lord's."  63 

earth ;  a  true  appreciation  of  the  meaning  and  bearing  of 
the  opening  verse  in  our  Bibles. 

The  man  of  science  is  not  asked,  for  instance,  to  turn  away 
from  those  special  investigations  which  are  engrossing  his 
attention,  and  to  engage  in  a  perfectly  distinct  order  of  con- 
templations unrelated  to  the  matters  he  has  in  hand.  He  is 
simply  asked  to  observe  and  to  investigate  in  his  own  special 
department  with  a  fully  awakened  nature — to  let  his  religious 
susceptibilities  have  free  play  about  what  he  is  doing ;  and 
his  special  investigations,  being  thus  consecrated,  will  of  them- 
selves train  and  educate  him  for  the  duties  and  delights  of 
the  heavenly  life. 

Not  only  does  the  truth  that  "  the  earth  and  its  fulness, 
the  world  and  all  that  are  therein,"  are  the  Lord's,  extend 
the  range  of  our  thoughts  and  enjoyments ;  it  also  heightens 
the  value  of  those  that  are  common  to  the  whole  race.  It 
makes  us  bear  a  deeper  and  truer  love  to  all  God's  creatures. 
The  fact  that  they  are  His  creatures  will  do  more  than  merely 
prevent  us  from  using  them  with  harshness  and  cruelty.  It 
will  give  them  an  interest  in  our  eyes,  and  make  them  objects 
of  delightful  contemplation.  It  will  make  us  begin  to  look 
upon  all  Nature  with  eyes  of  thoughtfulness  and  love.  It 
will  of  necessity  constrain  us  to  say — 

"  He  prayetli  best  who  lovetli  best 
All  things,  both  great  and  small  ; 
For  the  dear  God  who  loveth  us, 
He  made  and  loveth  all." 

Thirdly,  by  thus  sending  men  to  Nature  as  well  as  to 
Scripture  for  their  religion,  our  texts  tend  to  give  breadth 
and  freedom  to  the  religious  character. 

This  is  what  many  sincerely  good  men  sadly  want.  It  is 
often  impossible  not  to  recognise  their  genuine  earnestness 
and  spirituality  of  mind,  when  we  are  greatly  repelled  by 
their  austerities  and  their  narrowness  of  view.  They  obviously 
breathe  in  the  midst  of  a  vitiated  atmosphere.  There  is  disease 
about  their  very  goodness. 

Now,  when  you  turn  away  from  the  biography  of  such  a 
man,  or  from  listening  to  his  conversation,  and  read  such  a 


64  "  THE    EARTH    IS    THE    LORD's." 

psalm  as  that  read  this  forenoon — the  104th  Psalm — you  see 
into  the  whole  mystery  of  the  disease.  There  is  a  great  and 
felt  difference.  You  have  come  from  the  company  of  one 
who  thinks  Religion  is  the  denial  of  Nature,  into  the  company 
of  one  who  thinks  it  elev^ates  and  perfects  Nature.  You  feel 
that  here,  where  you  are  now,  there  beats  a  heart  pious  and 
spiritual  indeed,  but  also  of  a  large  and  genial  humanity,  and 
delighting  in  all  natural  beauty  and  excellence. 

There  is  nothing  artificial  or  exclusive,  nothing  making  the 
life  rigid  and  austere,  unsociable  or  ungenial,  in  such  piety, 
however  deep  or  fervent  it  may  be :  whereas  it  is  impossible 
to  describe  how  much  hardness  and  austerity  and  sickliness 
is  given  to  the  religious  character  by  making  the  Bible  alone — 
the  Bible  arbitrarily  severed  from  Nature  and  life — the  Bible 
most  unbiblically  used — the  sole  source  of  spiritual  growth. 

I  would  then,  most  emphatically,  that  men  would  think  on 
the  Gospel  not  less,  but  on  Nature  more.  There  can  be  no 
breadth,  no  geniality  otherwise ;  no  childlike  simplicity,  no 
readiness  to  receive  all  truly  Divine  impressions.  The  influ- 
ences of  Nature  are  constantly  needed  to  keep  alive  those 
feelings  of  admiration,  hope,  and  love,  which  enter  so  largely 
into  spiritual  life. 

Again,  and  fourthly,  only  through  realising  our  relation  to 
Nature  as  God's  creation,  God's  work,  can  we  realise  our  relation 
to  God  Himself.  Through  realising  its  grandeur,  for  example, 
we  have  the  feeling  of  our  own  insignificancy  forced  upon  us  in 
the  most  impressive  way  not  only  in  relation  to  it,  but  also,  and 
still  more,  in  relation  to  its  Author.  You  will  remember  how 
vividly  the  Psalmist  has  described  this  feeling  as  springing  up 
within  him  on  the  contemplation  of  Nature's  magnificence. 
"When  I  consider,"  he  says  in  the  8th  Psalm — "when  I  con- 
sider Thy  heavens,  the  work  of  Thy  fingers,  the  moon  and  the 
stars  which  Thou  hast  ordained;  what  is  man,  that  Thou  art 
mindful  of  him  ?  and  the  son  of  man,  that  Thou  visitest  him  ?  " 

And  in  the  very  psalm  from  which  I  have  chosen  one  of  my 
texts,  immediately  after  the  words,  "  The  earth  is  the  Lord's, 
and  the  fulness  thereof ;  the  world,  and  they  that  dwell  therein  : 
for  He  hath  founded  it  upon  the  seas,  and  established  it  upon 
the  floods,"  he  exclaims,  "Who  shall  ascend  into  the  hill  of  the 


"the  earth  is  the  lord's."  65 

Lord  ?  or  who  shall  stand  in  His  holy  place  ?  "  which  is  almost 
the  same  thought ;  the  only  difference  being  that  instead  of 
asking,  "What  is  man,  that  Thou  art  mindful  of  him?  and  the 
son  of  man,  that  Thou  visitest  him  ?  "  he  here  asks,  what  is 
man,  or  the  son  of  man,  that  he  should  be  permitted  to  draw 
near  unto  Thee,  and  worship  in  Thy  great  and  holy  presence. 

If  the  psalmists  of  Israel  with  their  imperfect  knowledge  of 
the  greatness  of  the  earth,  and  their  far  more  imperfect  know- 
ledge of  the  immensity  of  the  heavens,  thus  felt,  how  much  more 
ought  we  so  to  feel,  whose  knowledge  of  the  vastness  and  the 
wonderfulness  of  the  universe  the  discoveries  of  science  have  so 
exceedingly  enlarged  ? 

Finally,  if  we  really  accept  what  the  texts  teach  us ;  if  we 
believe  God  to  be  the  Creator  of  the  heaven  and  the  earth,  the 
rightful  Lord  of  the  earth  and  its  fulness,  of  the  world  and  them 
that  dwell  therein  ;  then  are  we  obviously  bound  to  acknowledge 
that  we  owe  all  to  Him,  and  can  hold  nothing  as  strictly  and 
entirely  our  own,  no  foot  of  land,  no  penny  of  our  wealth,  no 
hour  of  our  time,  no  faculty  or  exercise  of  body  or  mind,  as 
independent  of  His  will  or  exempt  from  His  service. 

If  these  texts  be  true — and  reason  and  conscience  honestly 
questioned  will  not  refuse  to  testify  to  their  truth — it  is  impos- 
sible for  a  man  to  hold  anything  justly  as  his  absolute  property  ; 
by  no  price  or  labour  even  can  you  purchase  an  absolute  right 
to  anything.  If  you  believe  or  say  that  because  you  have 
inherited  an  estate,  or  even  because  you  have  bought  it  with 
the  wealth  which  you  have  earned  by  the  hardest  labour  of  body 
or  of  mind,  therefore  it  is  yours  to  do  with  it  as  you  please,  or 
that  you  are  anything  more  than  the  steward  of  it,  you  contra- 
dict most  directly  the  truth  that  "the  earth  and  its  fulness  are 
the  Lord's."  You  say  that  they  are  yours,  not  His.  If  a  State 
law  or  a  political  economist  encourage  you  in  your  opinion,  it 
is  none  the  less  false,  God  is,  strictly  speaking,  the  sole  pro- 
prietor in  the  universe.  He  made  "the  earth  and  its  fulness," 
and  allows  us  to  enjoy  them  as  stewards — "  to  occupy  until  He 
come."  We  are  not  at  liberty  to  use  anything  for  our  own 
purposes.  Everything  must  be  employed  for  the  common  good 
of  all,  for  the  greatest  glory  of  God. 

We  have  not  even  an  absolute  right  to  ourselves.     It  is  not 

E 


66 

only  "the  world,"  but  "they  who  dwell  therein"  that  are  the 
Lord's.  He  is  our  Creator,  and  we  are  bound  to  work  out,  by 
every  power  and  energy  of  our  nature,  the  will  of  God  in  our 
creation.  We  are  bound  to  sacrifice  life  itself  in  His  service, 
if  that  be  needed.  Should  I  see  before  me  some  great  work 
which  I  can  perform  to  my  race,  but  only  by  over-exerting 
every  physical  and  mental  energy,  so  that  if  I  do  it  I  must  sink 
prematurely  into  the  grave  ;  still,  if  the  work  be  of  higher  value 
than  anything  else  I  can  do  for  my  fellow-men  with  my  life, 
then  am  I  morally  bound  to  sacrifice  that  life,  however  pleasant 
and  dear  it  may  be  to  me.  We  are  not  our  own ;  we  are  the 
Lord's ;  and  the  law  of  our  lives  can  be  no  other  than  His  holy 
will — that  will  which  we  daily  pray  may  be  done  in  heaven  and 
in  earth.  Let  us  live  as  we  pray.  Let  us  see  to  it  that  that 
will  is  done  in  us  and  by  us.  Let  us  strive  that  our  wills  never 
contradict  but  ever  faithfully  obey  that  sovereign  will.  God 
grant  us  through  the  strengthening  of  His  Holy  Spirit  to 
succeed  in  this  striving.  And  to  His  name  be  the  glory,  now 
and  evermore.     Amen. 


VI. 

CLAIMS   OF  DIVINE   WISDOM   ON    YOUNG  MEN.^ 

"  Ponder  the  path  of  thy  feet,  and  let  all  thy  ways  be  established." 

— Proverbs  iv.  26. 

nnHESE  words  tell  us  that  we  should  not  pass  through  life 
-'-  without  serious  reflection  on  what  life  is  and  what  it 
means;  on  what  its  duties  are,  and  what  its  issues  are  likely 
to  be ;  but  that  we  should  carefully  consider  how  we  may 
make  the  most  of  the  great  gift  of  life  which  God  has  bestowed 
upon  us,  and  may  so  live  as  that  God,  and  the  reasons  and 
consciences  within  us  which  testify  of  God  and  for  God,  will 
approve  of  our  lives.  They  tell  us  what  a  multitude  of  other 
verses  in  the  book  from  which  they  are  taken  also  tell  us. 
Indeed  the  great  aim  of  the  Book  of  Proverbs  is  to  commend 
religious  thoughtfulness.  It  is  a  book  written  in  praise  of 
wisdom,  or  of  moral  and  religious  good  sense,  as  that  "the 
merchandise  of  which  is  better  than  the  merchandise  of  silver, 
and  the  gain  thereof  than  fine  gold ; "  and  to  which  all  the 
things  that  can  be  desired  are  not  to  be  compared.  Its  burden 
is,  "Get  wisdom,  get  understanding;  forget  it  not:  .  .  .  for- 
sake her  not,  and  she  shall  preserve  thee :  love  her,  and  she 
shall  keep  thee.  Wisdom  is  the  principal  thing;  therefore 
get  wisdom  :  and  with  all  thy  getting  get  understanding." 
Such  is  the  advice  which  is  given  us,  in  substance,  in  verse 
after  verse,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  book,  as 
well  as  in  our  text. 

It  is  advice  which  should  not  come  amiss  to  any  of  us — 
which  we  all  need  to  lay  to  heart — for  it  reminds  us  of  a 
duty  which  lies  upon  every  one  of  us  at  every  moment,  which 
concerns  our  whole  conduct,  which  is  broad  as  the  moral 
law   and    our   moral   life,   which    we    cannot   neglect   without 

1  Preached  in  the  Bute  Hall  before  the  students  of  Glasgow  University,  and 
published  by  request. 

67 


68        CLAIMS    OF   DIVINE   WISDOM    ON    YOUNG   MEN. 

sin,  or  without  the  shame  and  sorrow  and  suffering  which 
follow  on  sin,  and  yet  which  we  are  all  prone  to  forget  or 
lightly  to  regard.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  advice  which 
certainly  cannot  be  more  appropriate  to  any  among  us  than 
to  those  whom  I  wish  to  have  particularly  in  view  in  what 
I  say  at  this  time.  Young  men  do  not  need  the  advice  less 
than  older  people,  but  rather  the  reverse.  They  have,  as  a 
rule,  some  precious  qualities  of  disposition  in  which  those 
more  advanced  in  age  are  apt  to  be  deficient,  but  thought- 
fulness  is  not  generally  their  strong  point ;  the  want  of  it  is 
very  frequently  their  weakest  point.  Then,  not  less  but  more 
depends  on  their  choice  of  a  path  and  on  their  giving  heed 
to  their  feet.  They  have  a  wider  choice  of  paths ;  they  are 
freer  and  likelier  to  choose  either  the  very  best  or  the  very 
worst  path  than  those  who  have  already  gone  a  considerable 
way  in  some  particular  direction.  Nowhere  are  wrong  steps 
so  dangerous  or  right  steps  so  hopeful  as  at  the  outset  of 
the  journey  of  life.  A  little  swerving  from  the  true  path 
and  a  few  stumbles  there,  may  make  the  whole  course  of  a 
man's  life  a  disastrous  failure,  terribly  different  from  what 
it  otherwise  might  have  been,  terribly  different  to  himself 
and  to  all  connected  with  him.  God  grant,  therefore,  that 
the  words  which  I  have  to  say  to  you  young  men  this  day 
may  have  some  influence  in  leading  you  to  accept  heartily,  and 
to  act  faithfully  on,  the  exhortation  in  the  text. 

I  do  not  need  to  explain  it,  for  it  is  already  as  plain  as 
words  can  make  it.  "  Ponder  the  path  of  thy  feet,  and  let  all 
thy  ways  be  established."  There  is  a  right  course  in  life,  and 
there  are  many  wrong  courses, — there  is  a  line  of  conduct 
which  God  approves  of,  and  there  are  many  which  He  con- 
demns— one  which  leads  to  blessedness,  and  many  which  end 
in  ruin ;  and  what  we  are  here  told  is.  Choose  thoughtfully 
among  these  ways,  so  different  in  themselves,  and  so  different 
in  their  issues, — be  careful  to  keep  out  of  every  wrong  one, — 
take  the  right  path,  and  see  well  that  you  remain  in  it, — let 
no  temptation  entice  you  away  from  it, — select  your  every  step 
heedfully,  so  as  not  to  stumble  or  fall.  It  is  certainly  plain 
and  commonplace  advice — "the  instruction  of  a  father,  the 
law  of  a  mother  " — and  yet  who  can  doubt  that  thoroughly  to 


CLAIMS   OF   DIVINE   WISDOM   ON    YOUNG   MEN.        69 

receive  it  would  "give  subtilty  to  the  simple,"  and  avail  us 
more  than  silver  or  gold,  power  or  fame,  science  or  learning  ? 

The  text  is  as  reasonable  and  practical  as  it  is  plain.  It 
advises  us  to  exercise  just  that  wisdom  which,  as  rational  and 
moral  beings,  we  are  able  and  bound  to  exercise,  and  not  such 
wisdom,  or  so-called  wisdom,  as  may  be  beyond  us.  It  does 
not  say  that  we  must  know  much,  or  that  we  must  have  much 
mental  ability.  God  may  have  so  placed  us  in  life  that  our 
opportunities  for  acquiring  knowledge  are  few,  and  He  may 
have  given  us  a  moderate  or  small  measure  of  talent.  But 
what  is  here  asked  of  us  is  merely  to  try  to  find  out,  in  what- 
ever circumstances  we  are  placed,  what  our  duty  is,  and  how 
best  to  do  it ;  to  use  what  power  of  thought  we  have  got  in 
the  choice  and  carrying  out  of  such  a  life  as  our  consciences 
tell  us  God  demands :  not  knowledge,  thought,  ability,  either 
absolutely  in  themselves  or  relatively  to  others,  but  simply 
knowledge  about  what  concerns  us  as  moral  and  responsible 
beings,  to  each  of  whom  God  has  assigned  work  which  we 
shall  find  it  unspeakable  praise  and  blessedness  to  do  well, 
unspeakable  shame  and  misery  to  do  ill, — the  thoughtfulness 
which  ascertains  what  God's  will  as  to  duty  is,  and  which 
prevents  us  taking  any  step  that  we  have  not  His  warrant 
for, — the  ability  to  separate  between  good  and  evil,  both  in 
our  inner  life  of  feeling  and  our  outer  life  of  action.  Such 
knowledge  as  this — the  knowledge  of  God's  will  as  to  what 
use  we  ought  to  make  of  our  own  lives — no  one  of  us  can 
be  excused  for  not  possessing,  since  all  of  us  are  meant  to 
acquiesce  in  and  obey  that  will ;  such  thoughtfulness  as  this 
is,  through  God's  grace,  beyond  the  attainment  of  no  man 
who  is  anxious  for  it ;  such  ability  as  this  every  man  may  get 
who  sincerely  seeks  it  from  God,  and  earnestly  strives  to  obtain 
and  exercise  it. 

But  while  the  exhortation  of  the  text  is  thus  reasonable 
and  practical, — while  it  only  demands  what  is  not  merely 
possible  but  clearly  binding  on  us  as  intelligent  and  moral 
beings,  responsible  to  God  for  the  way  in  which  we  employ 
the  life  and  powers  He  has  given  us, — it  is  none  the  less  an 
exhortation  to  a  duty  which  is  far  from  natural  or  easy  to  us — 
an  exhortation  which  is  very  much  needed,  both  because  the 


70         CLAIMS    OF    DIVINE    WISDOM    ON    YOUNG   MEN. 

duty  of  which  it  reminds  us  is  extremely  apt  to  be  neglected, 
and  because  the  neglect  of  it  is  exceedingly  dangerous.  There 
is  no  reason  for  thinking  that  the  right  path  in  life  is  one 
which  a  man  can  hardly  miss,  or  one  which  it  is  the  exception 
to  be  ignorant  of  or  not  found  in.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  one 
path  among  many,  and  the  narrowest  of  all — to  the  merely 
natural  man  and  the  will  of  the  flesh,  the  least  inviting  of  all, 
the  one  most  apt  to  be  overlooked,  the  one  most  frequently 
overlooked.  It  needs  serious  thought  and  careful  pondering 
to  select  it ;  and  unless  a  man  feel  how  serious  it  must  be  to 
make  a  mistake  as  to  the  path,  and  unless  he  will  pause  and 
deliberate,  consult  his  conscience,  study  his  Bible,  use  his 
reason,  prayerfully  and  honestly,  in  order  to  find  out  which 
path  is  the  true  one,  he  is  certain  to  err.  It  is  the  getting 
into  a  wrong  road  which  needs  no  thought,  no  pondering.  To 
refrain  from  thought,  to  go  on  without  pondering,  to  do  as 
others  do,  to  let  chance  or  caprice,  or  pleasure  or  apparent 
self-interest  decide  us,  is  quite  enough  to  carry  us  woefully 
astray. 

Many  thus  act  to  their  own  grievous  loss.  Although 
spiritual  thoughtfulness  be  the  bounden  duty  of  all,  and  the 
indispensable  condition,  the  very  root  of  all  true  piety,  and 
even  of  all  true  manhood,  it  is  yet  a  rare  thing,  which  many 
are  destitute  of,  which  few  exercise  habitually  and  diligently, 
so  that  what  ought  to  be  our  highest  glory — the  power  of 
intelligent  choice  between  good  and  evil,  God  and  the  world, 
life  and  death  —  is  our  deepest  shame.  People  who  are 
thoughtful  and  careful  about  everything  else  are  often 
thoughtless  and  heedless  about  these,  the  really  needful 
things.  Those  whose  business  it  is,  as  it  were,  to  study  and 
think,  to  work  with  their  minds,  to  search  for  truth,  are 
often  as  devoid  as  others  of  this  higher  thoughtfulness.  The 
scholar,  the  student  of  science,  the  student  even,  I  fear,  of 
the  Bible  and  of  theology ;  those,  in  a  word,  who  engage 
with  diligence  and  delight  in  the  various  kinds  of  speculation, 
inquiry,  and  learning,  including  even  those  kinds  which  touch 
most  closely  on  the  moral  and  spiritual  life,  have  not  un- 
frequently  less  of  the  practical  thoughtfulness  which  consists 
in  "  pondering  the  path  of  their  feet "  than  the  peasant  who 


CLAIMS    OF    DIVIXE    WISDOM    ON    YOUNG    MEN.         71 

can  scarcely  read ;  and  it  is  an  error  if  any  of  us  con- 
clude because  we  have  more  education  than  is  common,  and 
really  like  to  study  and  think,  and  spend  much  of  our  time 
in  doing  so,  that  we  must,  as  a  matter  of  course,  have  that 
wisdom  which  the  least  educated  man  may  have.  We  may 
get  much  knowledge,  and  yet  not  get  that  understanding 
without  which  it  will  do  us  little  good,  and  deservedly  do  us 
little  good ;  since  surely,  let  our  powers  of  mind  and  know- 
ledge be  what  they  may,  if  all  that  gives  to  life  its  solemnity 
and  significance  be  habitually  lost  sight  of,  our  powers  have 
been  ill  applied  and  our  knowledge  is  a  vanity,  and  the 
simplest  man  whose  spirit  God's  Spirit  has  awakened  to 
meditate  on  what  concerns  righteousness  of  life  and  eternal 
peace  is  worthy,  even  as  regards  intelligence,  of  far  more 
respect  than  we.  We  may  know  many  foreign  languages, 
he  not  even  his  own ;  we  many  sciences,  he  none ;  but  the 
root  of  true  mental  life,  of  true  spiritual  culture,  is  in  him, 
and  it  is  not  in  us ;  and  he  is  the  better  educated  man  of  the 
two,  however  the  education  may  have  been  gained. 

"  Ponder  the  path  of  thy  feet,  and  let  all  thy  ways  be  estab- 
lished." Is  there  a  path  where  our  feet  may  always  move 
safely,  and  within  which  all  our  ways  may  be  established? 
Yes ;  a  glorious  and  blessed  path — the  one  right  path,  in  the 
resolute  choice  of  which,  and  steadfast  adherence  to  which,  true 
wisdom  mainly  consists.  What  is  this  path  ?  It  is — conscience, 
reason.  Scripture  all  tell  us — the  highest  life  we  are,  with  the 
help  of  God's  grace,  capable  of, — a  life  of  intellectual  truthful- 
ness, of  purity  and  elevation  of  feeling,  of  self-sacrificing  love 
for  the  good  of  others,  of  zeal  for  the  glory  of  God ;  in  a  word, 
the  hatred  and  avoidance  of  all  sin,  and  the  love  and  practice 
of  all  righteousness  from  the  noblest  motives.  Some  such 
answer  as  this  is  all  that  natural  reason  in  itself,  and  all 
perhaps  that  reason  even  enlightened  by  the  Old  Testament 
revelation,  could  give ;  and  it  is  one  which  is  perfectly  true, 
although  somewhat  vague. 

But  in  Christ  it  becomes  as  definite  as  it  can  be  made.  "  I 
am  the  way,"  says  Christ.  "No  man  cometh  unto  the  Father 
but  by  Me."     Christ  has  brought  near  to  us  the  love  and  mercy 


72         CLAIMS    OF    DIVINE    WISDOM    ON    YOUNG    MEN. 

of  God  through  the  sacrifice  of  Himself  for  the  putting  away  of 
sin ;  He  has  shown  us  the  example  of  a  perfect  life,  perfect 
under  suffering  and  perfect  in  action — a  heart  transparently 
pure  and  full  of  love  to  God  and  man — a  mind  always  in  a 
balance  of  truth,  swayed  by  no  excesses,  running  to  no 
extremes — a  will  ever  exercised  in  doing  good — a  character 
absolutely  harmonious  with  itself  and  with  the  whole  spiritual 
universe ;  and  He  has  obtained  for  us  the  gift  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  the  strength  of  Divine  Grace,  to  lift  us,  as  it  were, 
out  of  our  natural  state  of  selfishness  and  sin,  into  that  close, 
inner,  loving  contact  with  Himself  which  fills  us  with  a  new  life, 
which  gives  us  that  communion  with  God  which  is  eternal  life. 
Life  in  Christ,  and  the  life  of  Christ  in  us — life  moulded 
on  His  example,  life  with  His  principles  and  aims,  life  origi- 
nated, pervaded,  enlightened,  purified,  swayed,  strengthened, 
and  develojDed  by  His  Spirit — is  true  life,  the  only  right  way  to 
eternal  life,  the  one  path  which  will  take  us  thither. 

This,  then,  is  the  path  which  God  has  opened  up  for  you 
through  Jesus  Christ,  and  in  which  He  invites  and  summons 
you  to  walk.  This  grand  and  beautiful  style  of  life,  far  higher, 
far  nobler,  far  more  truly  attractive  to  every  eye  really  open  to 
spiritual  grandeur,  truth,  and  beauty,  than  any  king  or  prince 
on  earth  can  live,  if  God  does  not  raise  them,  too,  to  a  higher 
than  worldly  life, — this  life,  I  say,  is  the  path  in  which  He  asks 
every  one  of  you  to  walk.  There  is  not  one  young  man  now 
hearing  me,  however  mean  his  surroundings  or  ordinary  his 
abilities,  whom  God  has  not  judged  worthy  of  a  life  far  higher 
and  better  than  any  which  nobles  or  sovereigns  can  live,  using 
merely  their  worldly  powers  and  resources.  This  is  the  equality 
between  man  and  man  which  the  Gospel  sets  forth — an  equality 
distant  from  that  of  socialism  as  heaven  from  earth.  The 
Gospel  does  not  seek  to  deprive  any  of  their  earthly  advan- 
tages, and  reduce  all  to  the  same  low  worldly  level,  but  it 
would  raise  all  to  so  high  a  rank  of  life,  that  in  the  glory  of 
the  royal  priesthood  with  which  it  clothes  every  true  follower 
of  Jesus,  the  greatest  earthly  distinctions  will  be  seen  to  be 
insignificant. 

Here  then,  young  men,  is  the  question  which  I  am  bound  to 
press  upon  you — Will  you  take  this  path  into  which  God  in- 


CLAIMS    OF   DIVINE   WISDOM    ON    YOUNG    MEN.         73 

vites  you,  or  will  you  be  so  thoughtless  as  to  try  some  other  ? 
Will  you  choose  that  noblest  kind  of  life  which  your  Father  in 
heaven  would  have  you  lead,  the  life  of  sonship — the  very  life 
which  is  in  His  only  begotten  Son  Jesus  Christ ;  or  will  you, 
from  the  falsest  modesty — or  rather  through  the  most  fatal 
want  of  self-respect — deem  yourselves  unworthy  to  receive 
what  God  does  not  deem  it  unworthy  of  Himself  to  offer  you, 
and  reject  the  unspeakable  gift  which  would  so  enrich,  ennoble, 
and  bless  you?  What  other  path  would  you  prefer  to  it? 
What  other  calling  would  please  you  better  than  this  your 
high  calling  in  Jesus  Christ  ?  Oh,  surely  you  would  not  rather 
take  the  paths  which  some  young  men  take, — those  dark  and 
foul  paths  of  degrading  indulgence,  in  following  which  men 
break  their  mothers'  hearts,  bring  down  the  heads  of  their 
fathers  with  sorrow  to  the  tomb,  and  cruelly  wrong  and  injure 
their  wives  and  children — in  which  all  that  distinguishes  and 
honours  human  nature  is  lost  and  trampled  in  the  mire — in 
which,  as  a  man  proceeds,  he  becomes  increasingly  debased 
even  in  his  own  eyes,  until  dead  to  shame,  only  because  dead 
to  goodness — in  which  he  brings  discredit  on  the  class  to  which 
he  belongs,  and  disgrace  and  misery  on  all  connected  with  him 
— and  at  the  end  of  which  he  finds  only  an  unhonoured  grave 
unillumined  with  the  rays  of  hope?  Surely  you  will  never 
prefer  any  of  these  paths  to  the  one  in  which  God  would  have 
you  to  walk.  And  yet,  my  friends,  human  nature  when  it 
trusts  only  in  itself  is  very  weak,  and  the  appetites  and  pas- 
sions which  prompt  to  evil  are  in  many  a  young  man's  heart 
very  strong,  and  difficult  to  restrain  or  guide ;  and  the  only 
way,  therefore,  to  be  secure  against  wandering  into  any  of 
those  foul  paths,  is  to  choose  the  path  which  is  farthest  away 
from  them — the  purest  and  best  path  through  life — the  one 
true  path, — the  path  of  God's  grace  in  Jesus  Christ. 

I  assume,  however,  that  you  will  at  least  choose  some  path 
which  is  outwardly  respectable,  or,  it  may  be,  some  path  which 
will  lead  you  to  worldly  success  and  distinction ;  and  I  wish 
you  may  get  all  worldly  things  really  for  your  good  in  fullest 
measure.  Yet  I  say  that  if,  knowing  as  you  do  of  the  higher 
life  to  which  God  calls  you,  you  are  content  with  one  of  mere 
worldly  respectability — that  if,  knowing  as  you  do  of  the  greater 


74        CLAIMS    OF   DIVINE    WISDOM    ON    YOUNG    MEN. 

blessings  which  He  would  have  you  strive  to  attain,  you  can  be 
so  untrue  to  yourselves  and  respond  so  ill  to  His  thoughts  to- 
wards you  as  to  seek  only  worldly  advantages, — you  deserve  to 
fail  in  your  poor  ambition — deserve  to  sink  below  respectability 
— deserve  not  to  gain  the  object  of  your  quest, — or  deserve  to 
experience  how  poor  your  ambition  has  been — how  hollow  and 
delusive  mere  worldly  respectability  is — how  unsatisfactory 
mere  worldly  successes  and  distinctions  are.  And  you  will  get 
what  you  deserve  in  the  one  way  or  the  other. 

Not  a  young  man  here,  I  trust,  can  be  so  deficient  in  intelli- 
gence as  not  to  see,  or  so  narrow  in  heart  as  not  to  feel,  that  a 
far  higher  and  nobler  life  is  possible  to  him  than  any  merely 
worldly  life — that  the  truly  Divine  life  of  which  I  spoke  lays 
claim  to  him.  It  is  generally  only  the  old  who  have  abused 
their  lives,  and  grown  stupid  and  callous  and  contracted  in  the 
service  of  the  world,  who  cannot  see  or  feel  this.  And  if  you 
can  see  and  feel  it,  you  are  certainly  bound  to  choose  resolutely 
this  highest  life — the  Divine  life.  It  is  folly  to  choose  any- 
thing lower.  Thank  God  that  He  has  called  you  to  so  high  a 
destiny,  and  close  joyously  with  His  call.  Kealise  your  own 
worth  in  the  light  of  it.  Have  due  respect  to  your  own 
dignity  in  the  light  of  it.  The  best  is  the  best:  choose  not 
below  the  best,  when  all  below  it  is  infinitely  below  it,  and 
when  by  choosing  it  all  lower  good  will  be  added  unto  you, 
and  from  all  lower  things  you  will  be  able  to  extract  their 
utmost  good.  A  celebrated  modern  Italian — the  late  Joseph 
Mazzini — was  never  weary  of  crying  to  the  young  men  of  Italy, 
"  Young  men,  cherish  high  ideals."  This  day  my  whole  wish 
would  be  to  persuade  you  young  men  before  me  that  your  only 
true  wisdom  lies  in  cherishing  the  highest  ideal  you  can  form 
— in  taking  it  into  your  mind  and  heart — in  devoting  all  your 
powers  to  express  it  in  your  conduct.  But  the  highest  ideal  of 
life  conceivable  has  been  already  completely  realised.  Jesus 
Christ  has  shown  us  the  perfect  type  of  Divine  life  in  human 
nature — the  perfect  manifestation  and  embodiment  of  Divine 
love,  goodness,  and  holiness.  Therefore,  if  we  would  walk  in 
the  true  path  and  have  all  our  ways  established,  we  must 
continually  study  His  life,  grow  in  the  knowledge  of  His 
excellences,  appropriate   the  features   of    His   character,  and 


CLAIMS    OF    DIVINE   WISDOM    ON    YOUNG   MEN.         75 

follow  in  His  footsteps.  It  may  be  well  to  study  the  lives  of 
others  who  have  been  eminent  for  virtues  and  achievements ; 
but  here,  again,  let  us  not  forget  that  the  best  is  the  best, — 
that  Jesus  alone  presents  us  with  a  perfect  example — that  the 
Christian  life  is  essentially  the  imitation,  the  reproduction,  of 
the  life  of  Christ. 

I  must  not  forget,  however,  that  we  are  living  in  days  when 
no  one  addressing  an  audience  of  educated  young  men  can 
safely  assume  that  there  are  not  some  of  them  far  from  pre- 
pared to  admit  the  Divinity  and  Divine  Mission  of  Jesus  Christ 
— and  far  from  prepared,  therefore,  to  seek  in  His  life,  doctrine, 
and  grace  the  true  life  necessary  to  every  human  soul,  enlight- 
enment as  to  the  right  path  of  human  conduct,  and  strength  to 
proceed  in  it.  Some  of  you,  it  may  be,  have  the  most  radical 
doubts  as  to  Christianity.  So  be  it.  Although  I  have  no 
time  to  consider  how  you  may  have  come  to  your  doubts,  or 
what  may  be  the  worth  of  the  grounds  on  which  you  would  be 
prepared  to  defend  them,  I  have  a  word  to  you  also. 

There  are  some  things  which,  happily,  you  cannot  very  easily 
doubt.  You  can  no  more  doubt,  for  instance,  the  testimony  of 
your  consciences  than  you  can  doubt  the  testimony  of  your 
eyesight.  You  can  no  more  help  distinguishing  between 
right  and  wrong — can  no  more  help  approving  of  generosity, 
truthfulness,  justice,  purity,  and  condemning  selfishness,  lying, 
injustice,  and  impurity — than  you  can  help  distinguishing  be- 
tween light  and  darkness,  and  preferring  one  kind  of  colouring 
to  another.  It  matters  not  how  your  conscience  may  have 
come  to  you,  or  how  it  may  have  been  formed  in  your  race,  any 
more  than  how  vision  originated  and  has  been  developed.  The 
inner  sense,  in  whatever  way  accounted  for,  is  as  credible  as 
the  outer  sense,  and  you  can  quite  as  reasonably  doubt  or  dis- 
believe your  eyes  as  your  consciences,  within  their  respective 
provinces.  You  simply  cannot  refuse  to  believe  the  voice  of 
conscience  without  being  condemned  by  your  conscience  and 
feeling  degraded. 

Well,  let  this  conscience  scrutinise  and  judge  your  own 
moral  lives.  It  is  what  it  ought  to  do.  It  is  its  appro^jriate 
function  and  work  within  you.  Under  the  gaze,  then,  of  an 
honest  conscience,  do  you  think  your  heart  and  conduct  at  all 


76         CLAIMS    OF    DIVINE    WISDOM    ON    YOUNG    MEN. 

what  they  ought  to  be,  or  are  you  quite  well  aware  that  they 
are  terribly  the  reverse  of  what  they  ought  to  be  ?  Ah  !  there 
can  be  no  doubt  as  to  what  the  answer  should  be  ;  no  doubt 
that,  unless  strangely  devoid  of  moral  susceptibility  and  earnest- 
ness, your  own  hearts  will  condemn  you,  testifying  that  your 
will  as  regards  good  is  weak  and  perverse,  your  affections  dis- 
ordered and  diseased,  your  passions  selfish  and  lawless,  your 
nature  corrupt  to  a  lamentable  extent.  It  is  not  very  long  ago 
since  those  who  were  then  deemed  advanced  thinkers  were  wont 
to  teach  that  all  men  were  born  good,  and  might,  if  they  had 
only  been  rightly  educated,  have  been  kept  good.  Darwinism, 
and  a  little  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  heredity,  have  quite  dis- 
credited that  nonsense.  Now,  our  advanced  thinkers  tell  us 
that  we  inherit  not  only  the  faulty  qualities  of  the  first  men, 
but  the  gross  appetites  and  passions  of  an  older  and  brutal 
ancestry.  Be  that  so  or  not,  your  own  moral  experience, 
honestly  consulted,  will  not  fail  soon  to  convince  you  that  your 
natures,  far  from  spontaneously  conforming  themselves,  as  they 
ought,  to  the  requirements  of  the  moral  law,  show  themselves 
deeply  estranged  from  it,  and  possessed  by  tendencies  which 
lead  it  incessantly  to  the  most  inexcusable  disobedience  to  its 
requirements. 

Now,  let  the  eye  of  conscience  turn  from  resting  on  your 
own  actual  moral  life  to  that  which  is  set  forth  in  the  New 
Testament  as  exhibited  by  Christ,  and  enjoined  by  Him  on 
His  followers.  You  may  refuse  to  assume,  or  even  to  admit, 
that  Christ  ever  lived;  but  you  cannot  push  your  scepticism 
so  far  as  to  deny  that  there  is  such  a  book  as  the  New 
Testament,  and  that  in  it  there  is  a  picture  drawn  of  one 
claiming  to  be  a  Saviour  and  to  reveal  to  man  the  true  way 
of  life.  Well,  let  your  consciences  examine  the  life  exhibited 
and  prescribed, — let  them  search  and  try  the  principles,  the 
motives,  the  ends  of  it;  let  them  see  if  they  can  find  any 
fault  there ;  let  them  honestly  say  whether  it  be  the  true  life 
of  man  or  not.  I  am  convinced  that,  if  sincere  and  candid, 
they  will  not  dare  to  deny  that  it  is  in  very  deed  the  only 
life  worthy  of  a  man.  The  conscience,  brought  into  the  pre- 
sence of  that  light,  must  pronounce  it  to  be  the  light  which 
can  alone  be  the  life  of  men. 


CLAIMS    OF    DIVINE    WISDOM    ON    YOUNG    MEN.         77 

Conscience  then,  it  seems,  certainly  pronounces  the  life 
which  you  must  lead  if  left  to  yourselves  an  evil  one,  and 
cannot  refuse  to  acknowledge  that  the  ideal  of  life  associated 
with  the  name  of  Christ  is  an  infinitely  higher  one — yea,  the 
only  true  one.  If  you  find  this  so,  as  I  am  sure  you  will  if 
you  only  inquire  aright,  it  will  then  be  for  you  to  consider 
how  you  will  live  as  you  know  you  ought  to  do,  if,  as  you 
suspect,  Christ  either  were  not,  or  not  what  He  claimed  to 
be.  The  first  and  greatest  of  questions  for  each  one  of  you 
is,  How  are  you  to  be  a  truly  good  man  ?  How  you  are  to 
overcome  the  evil  in  your  heart  and  the  temptations  in  the 
world,  and  to  attain  to  the  purity,  truth,  and  sanctity  which 
the  moral  law  demands  ?  Every  other  question  ought  to  be 
postponed  to  this.  All  doubts  as  to  religion  which  are  of  a 
merely  intellectual  or  speculative  character  can  reasonably  be 
considered  only  after  this  directly  and  intensely  practical  and 
moral  question  has  been  seriously  dealt  with — How,  being  such 
men  as  we  are,  are  we  to  become  such  men  as  we  ought  to 
be  ?  In  the  Gospel  of  Christ  there  is  an  answer  given  in 
comparison  with  which  any  other  which  has  ever  been  sug- 
gested can  hardly  fail  to  appear  to  a  morally  awakened  and 
earnest  mind  wretchedly  inadequate.  Thus,  the  man  who  is 
truly  aware  of  his  own  spiritual  condition,  of  his  own  sinful- 
ness and  moral  weakness,  and  who  at  the  same  time  contem- 
plates Christ  as  set  forth  in  the  Gospel,  may  be  expected  to 
feel  Christ  necessary  to  him  ;  that  without  Christ  he  cannot 
live,  and  without  Christ  he  dare  not  die  ;  that  only  in  such 
an  one  as  Christ  can  be  found  the  purity,  enlightenment, 
strength,  and  peace  which  he  needs. 

But  some  person  may  say,  That  such  an  one  as  Christ  is 
necessary  to  me  is  no  proof  that  there  ever  was  such  an  one 
as  Christ, — no  proof  that  the  claims  which  He  is  represented 
to  have  made  were  made  by  Him,  or  that  if  made  they  were 
true.  I  quite  admit  that,  but  he  who  says  so  must  also  admit 
that  these  claims  being  what  they  are  represented  to  have 
been — being  that  Christ  is  the  only  Saviour  from  sin,  and  can 
alone  show  the  true  path  of  life,  and  alone  enable  men  to 
follow  it — they  have  an  immense  and  immediate  practical 
interest  for  him,  and  he  is  bound  to  examine  them  under  the 


78         CLAIMS    OF    DIVINE    WISDOM    OX    YOUNG    MEN. 

deepest  sense  of  moral  responsibility  and  of  personal  concern. 
Now  this,  it  seems  to  me,  is  a  point  of  momentous  importance. 

We  constantly  hear  of  young  men  having  had  their  faith 
shaken  by,  for  example,  some  metaphysical  theory  of  the  limits 
of  knowledge,  or  some  scientific  or  so-called  scientific  theory 
of  evolution,  or  certain  critical  investigations  into  the  origin 
and  composition  of  books  of  Scripture,  or  some  ingenious 
speculation  as  to  the  credibility  of  miracles,  &c. ;  and  it  may 
be  that  we  are  asked  to  indicate  how  the  doubts  which  have 
thus  been  raised  should  be  dealt  with.  In  the  vast  majority 
of  cases  it  is,  I  believe,  comparatively  useless  to  deal  with 
them  directly,  because  they  have  mainly  risen  from  there 
having  been  no  real  faith  in  Christ,  or  even  serious  and 
reasonable  consideration  of  Christ's  claims,  to  start  with.  I 
do  not  see  that  much  direct  good  is  likely  to  come  from  con- 
troverting such  doubts  as  these,  if  the  doubters  have  no  due 
sense  of  what  Christ  claims  to  be,  and  of  the  relationship 
especially  which  He  claims  to  hold  to  their  own  souls.  If  you 
realise  in  some  fitting  measure  your  own  condition  as  a  sinner, 
and  seriously  consider  how  the  Gospel  responds  to  your  wants 
as  a  sinner,  then,  but  only  then,  can  I  entertain  a  good  hope 
that  you  will  see  that  Christ  stands  in  an  altogether  excep- 
tional, yea,  unique  relation  to  you  ;  that  from  that  you  may 
be  able  to  appreciate  the  uniqueness  of  His  position  in  the 
history  of  revelation,  in  the  history  of  religion,  in  the  history 
of  humanity,  and  in  the  system  of  the  universe;  and  so  that, 
from  the  centre  outwards,  miracles  and  prophecies,  histories 
and  Scriptures,  and  even  theories  of  evolution  and  the  preten- 
sions of  Agnosticism,  may  appear  in  a  new  light,  and  your 
doubts,  drawn  from  the  far-off  regions  of  speculation  or  from 
difficult  critical  investigations,  vanish  away. 

What  I  would  insist  on  is,  that  you  begin  your  inquiry  with 
what  is  nearest  to  you  and  most  certain — with  self-knowledge 
honestly  obtained — and  then,  that  with  that  you  go  directly 
to  the  contemplation  of  Christ  Himself  and  to  the  considera- 
tion of  His  claims  to  be  your  Saviour,  before  you  undertake 
to  judge  of  Him  by  the  speculations  of  Hume  or  Spencer 
or  Haeckel,  or  even  by  the  attempted  defences  of  Him  by 
Christian  Apologists.     Christ  addresses  Himself  to  those  who 


CLAIMS    OF    DIVINE    WISDOM    ON    YOUNG    MEN.         79 

feel  the  misery,  the  burdeu,  the  guilt  of  sin ;  and  a  man  who 
does  not  feel  these  things  cannot  be  converted  to  faith  in 
Christ  by  any  mere  processes  of  logic.  From  the  very  nature 
of  Christ's  claims  they  must,  in  order  to  be  profitably  dealt 
with,  be  treated  not  as  objects  of  pure  intellectual  controversy, 
but  of  earnest  moral  inquiry.  Where,  however,  there  is  a 
deep  sense  of  responsibility  and  a  real  eagerness  for  the  true 
way  of  life,  there  may  we  confidently  trust  that  His  highest 
claims  will  be  found  to  be  amply  warranted,  and  that  He  will 
satisfy  the  intellect  not  less  fully  than  He  does  the  heart. 

I  should  now  speak  of  the  characteristics  of  the  true  and 
living  way  in  which  we  are  called  by  Christ  to  walk,  and  of  the 
means  which  He  has  provided  to  enable  us  to  walk  therein ;  but 
time  forbids  me  even  to  touch  on  these  great  themes.  One 
other  thing,  however,  must  be  said — for  without  attention  to 
it  all  else  that  has  been  said  will  be  useless.  It  is,  that  we  can 
neither  reasonably  hope  to  ponder  aright  the  path  of  our  feet, 
nor  to  have  our  ways  established — neither  reasonably  hope  to 
get  into  the  right  path  nor  to  keep  in  it — if  we  trust  merely  in 
our  own  wisdom  and  our  own  strength.  We  must  place  our 
dependence  in  a  higher  wisdom  and  a  greater  strength ;  we 
must  seek  the  enlightenment  and  the  power  which  the  Spirit  of 
God  alone  imparts.  While  carefully  using  our  own  reasons, 
we  must  also  have  the  Divine  light  shining  on  them ;  while 
sparing  no  effort  we  can  ourselves  make,  we  must  likewise  lean 
humbly  on  the  arm  of  the  Lord.  "  A  man's  heart  deviseth  his 
way,  but  the  Lord  directeth  his  steps,"  we  read  in  the  Book  of 
Proverbs.  "  The  steps  of  a  good  man,"  says  the  Psalmist,  "  are 
ordered  by  the  Lord,  and  He  delighteth  in  his  way."  "  I  know, 
0  Lord,"  exclaims  Jeremiah, — "  I  know  that  the  way  of  man  is 
not  in  himself :  it  is  not  in  man  that  walketh  to  direct  his 
steps."  One  of  the  greatest  and  most  blessed  truths  taught  us 
in  the  Gospel  is,  that  now  the  Holy  Ghost  has  been  fully  given, 
both  to  lead  us  into  the  true  path  of  life,  and  to  enable  us 
to  abide  in  it ;  and  we  shall  make  a  fatal  mistake  if  we  overlook 
this  fact,  and  try  to  do  without  the  Spirit's  aid. 

To  take  the  right  path,  we  must  rise  above  what  is  merely 
natural  in  us,  and  resist  much  that  is  most  natural  to  us ;  we 
must  turn  from  the  folly,  the  self-will,  the  love  of  pleasure,  the 


80         CLAIMS    OF    DIVINE    WISDOM    ON    YOUNG    MEN. 

love  of  praise,  the  avarice,  the  ambition,  the  worldliness,  which 
inhere  in  us  and  beset  us  :  we  must  quite  turn  away  from  them, 
and  fix  our  eyes  and  bend  our  steps  in  the  opposite  direction  ; 
we  must  feel  the  things  we  have  hitherto  been  blind  to,  nearer 
us,  and  more  sure  than  what  our  fingers  can  grasp — realise  the 
powers  of  the  world  to  come,  deny  ourselves,  and  seek  our  lives 
not  in  ourselves  nor  in  the  world,  but  in  Christ.  Now  assuredly, 
flesh  and  blood,  mere  self-will  and  natural  feeling,  are  not 
likely  to  bring  us  into  such  a  way  as  this ;  and  yet  it  is  the  new 
and  living  way.  On  the  contrary,  to  enter  it  we  must  renounce 
flesh  and  blood,  mere  will  and  feeling,  and  have  regard  only  to 
the  real  truth  of  things.  If  we  do  not  seriously  use  our  reasons 
to  discover  that — if  we  do  not  yield  them  to  the  guidance  of 
Divine  Wisdom,  and  follow  where  it  leads, — our  passions,  our 
pleasures,  our  interests,  are  sure  to  entice  and  draw  us  into 
some  other  path.  Keason  alone,  and  reason  only,  when  guided 
by  the  Spirit  of  God,  when  seeing  and  judging  in  the  light 
which  is  from  above,  will  observe  the  true  path,  and  pronounce 
it  to  be  the  true  one. 

Even  if,  by  some  strange  chance,  we  were  to  get  into  the 
true  path  without  the  Spirit's  aid,  we  could  not  keep  in  it 
without  His  constant  help,  as  we  may  easily  convince  ourselves 
by  thinking  for  a  moment  of  the  great  number  and  great  power 
of  the  influences  or  forces  which  are  constantly  exerting  their 
strength  to  draw  us  out  of  it.  There  are  the  senses,  and  that 
whole  world  of  sense  which  is  their  object,  constantly  tending 
to  engross  our  attention  to  themselves,  to  make  us  unable  to 
think  about  or  believe  in  what  we  cannot  see  or  handle — unable 
to  feel  how  awfully  real  are  God  and  Christ,  sin  and  holiness, 
heaven  and  hell.  There  are  all  our  appetites  and  passions, 
requiring  to  be  incessantly  watched  and  strictly  controlled,  in 
order  that  they  may  not  degrade  and  brutalise  the  best  of  us. 
There  are  the  innumerable  cares  and  demands  of  daily  business, 
which  make  so  many  men  slaves  and  drudges,  who  sacrifice  to 
business  all  the  powers  of  their  manhood,  so  that  they  have 
none  to  give  to  God,  the  soul,  the  world  to  come.  There  are 
the  pleasures  of  life,  crowding  our  higher  and  middle  classes 
especially  with  swarms  of  trifling  and  superficial  creatures, 
devoid  of  the  very  idea  that  God  made  man  or  woman  for  any 


CLAIMS    OF    DIVINE   WISDOM    ON    YOUNG   MEN.         81 

worthy  end  at  all,  devoid  of  thought,  devoid  of  self-restraint  or 
regulated  feeling,  devoid  of  earnestness.  There  is  surely  need, 
great  need,  of  a  thoughtful  pondering  of  what  we  do  when 
things  like  these  are  constantly  assailing  us  in  order  to  make 
us  act  foolishly  and  wrongly,  and  especially  as,  our  own  hearts 
being  evil, — yes,  very  evil  even  when  converted, — we  are  so  in- 
clined of  ourselves  to  yield  to  them.  Surely  we  need  to  pray 
for  a  new  heart  as  the  condition  and  source  of  an  understand- 
ing mind ;  surely  we  greatly  need  to  listen  to  the  word  of  St 
James,  this  wise  injunction  followed  by  a  precious  promise,  "  If 
any  of  you  lack  wisdom,  let  him  ask  of  God,  that  giveth  to  all 
men  liberally,  and  upbraideth  not ;  and  it  shall  be  given  him  ;  " 
surely  we  shall  do  well  to  remember  that  "  the  God  of  Israel  is 
He  who  giveth  strength  unto  His  people ; "  surely  we  may 
ardently  desire  to  be  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  to  be  en- 
lightened, purified,  and  sanctified  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 

My  message  to  you  is  ended.  I  have  sought  to  give  you  not 
merely  good  advice,  but  the  hest  advice.  May  you  accept  it  and 
act  on  it.  And  may  God  so  bless  it,  and  so  bless  and  guide 
and  keep  all  of  you,  that  all  the  duties  and  trials,  joys  and 
sorrows,  changes  and  events  which  await  you,  will  only  bring 
you  nearer  to  His  own  immediate  presence,  and  only  in- 
creasingly enrich  you  with  that  eternal  life  which  is  in  Him. 
Amen, 


VIL 
THE   CHIEF   GOOD.i 

"  There  be  many  that  say,  Who  will  show  us  any  good  ?    Lord,  lift  Thou  up  the 
light  of  Thy  countenance  upon  us." — Psalm  iv.  6. 

THE  subject  of  my  address  is  one  which  many  philosophers 
have  discussed.  But  the  only  observations  regarding  it 
which  I  shall  submit  to  you  will  be  of  a  very  simple  kind, 
and  they  will  also  be  as  practical  as  I  can  make  them. 

A  Catechism,  which  I  hope  may  be  long  familiar  to  Scottish 
young  men,  begins  with  the  question,  What  is  the  chief  end 
of  man?  It  is  a  question  of  a  kind  which  I  suppose  man 
alone  of  all  the  creatures  on  the  earth  asks.  The  other 
animals  fulfil  their  ends  without  thinking  of  what  these  are ; 
and,  impelled  by  their  particular  instincts  and  appetites,  they 
fulfil  them  as  a  rule  much  better  than  we  do  ours,  and  almost 
as  well  as  inanimate  objects  and  mechanical  forces  accomplish 
theirs.  Watch  a  flock  of  sea-gulls  plying  their  vocations  from 
morning  till  night  with  the  energy  which  characterises  them, 
and  you  may  almost  feel  inclined  to  agree  with  the  Greek 
sceptic  Carneades,  who  argued  that  reason  was  a  baneful  gift 
which  our  race  would  have  been  much  better  without.  Cer- 
tainly if  men  were  all  as  active  as  those  creatures  are  it  would 
be  much  better  both  for  themselves  and  their  fellows.  And  I 
suspect  that  the  advice,  "  Go  to  the  ant,  thou  sluggard  ;  consider 
her  ways,  and  be  wise,"  may  apply  to  many  of  us  who  would 
resent  being  pronounced  either  indolent  or  improvident. 

Yet  reason  is  a  glorious  gift  of  God.  By  the  possession  of 
it  man  is  raised  far  above  the  other  creatures  of  the  earth, 
although  in  virtue  of  the  possession  of  it  he  may  err  and 
degrade  himself  as  they  never  do.  It  is  by  the  exercise  of 
it  that  he  is  man ;  and  wherever  the  creature  called  man  is 
truly  man  he  asks  himself  in  some  form,  What  is  my  being's 

1  An  Address  delivered  in  the  Mitchell  Hall,  to  the  Students  of  Aberdeen 

University,  on  Sabbath  evening,  February  9,  1896. 

82 


THE    CHIEF   GOOD.  83 

end  and  aim  ?  What  should  I  seek  and  what  ought  I  to 
avoid?  What  is  evil  for  me,  and  what  would  be  best  for 
me?  Of  course,  so  long  as  reason  was  only  dawning,  only 
germinating,  the  consciousness  of  there  being  such  a  question 
could  only  be  vague,  obscure,  and  partial,  but  wherever  reason 
is  active,  wherever  the  claims  of  morality  are  acknowledged, 
wherever  there  is  remorse  or  shame  for  unfaithfulness  to  an 
ideal,  it  must  be  present.  Man  is  not  properly  man  until  he 
asks  the  question  in  some  form.  Until  he  asks  it  clearly  his 
mind  and  nature  are  immature. 

Universal  history  attests  that  for  many  ages  man  has  been 
pondering  over  this  question.  A  Hebrew  psalmist  tells  us  that 
in  his  day  there  were  "  many  that  said.  Who  will  show  us 
any  good?"  and  gives  as  his  own  answer,  "Lord,  lift  Thou 
up  the  light  of  Thy  countenance  upon  us."  The  writer  of 
Ecclesiastes  speaks  of  many  attempts  to  answer  it,  utters 
many  daring  doubts  in  regard  to  it,  but  ends  with  this  advice 
as  "the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter,"  the  true  answer  to 
every  seeker,  "Fear  God,  and  keep  His  commandments.  For 
God  shall  bring  every  work  into  judgment,  with  every  secret 
thing,  whether  it  be  good,  or  whether  it  be  evil." 

For  the  sages  of  all  the  great  Oriental  nations  the  question, 
What  is  the  Supreme  Good?  had  an  all-absorbing  interest, 
and  the  answers  which  they  gave  to  it  mightily  affected  not 
only  their  own  lives,  but  the  lives  of  millions  of  their  country- 
men. You  know  how  in  all  the  Greek  schools  of  philosophy, 
at  least  after  the  revolution  in  Greek  thought  which  we 
associate  with  the  name  of  Socrates,  the  great  and  dividing 
question  in  dispute  among  them  was  just  this,  What  is  the 
chief  good?  Plato  and  Aristotle,  Epicurus  and  Zeno,  widely 
as  they  differ  in  other  respects,  agree  as  to  the  importance 
to  be  assigned  to  the  inquiry  regarding  the  end  of  action, 
the  end  in  itself,  the  ultimate  good.  Even  some  of  the  most 
thorough  of  the  Greek  sceptics,  although  sceptical  as  to  almost 
all  other  things,  were  not  sceptical  either  as  to  life  having  a 
chief  end  or  as  to  what  the  end  was,  but  recommended  doubt  or 
suspension  of  judgment  as  to  other  things  as  a  means  of  attain- 
ing that  mental  peace,  that  imperturbability,  that  freedojn  from 
passion  and  care,  which  they  considered  to  be  the  chief  good. 


84  THE    CHIEF    GOOD. 

It  is  true  that  even  from  of  old  some  voices  have  made  them- 
selves heard,  asking,  Is  there  really  any  good  ?  Is  everything 
not  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit  ?  Is  all  search  for  happiness 
not  folly  ?  But  such  voices  have  been  very  few, — fewer  even 
than  those  which  have  said,  "There  is  no  God"  or  "There  is 
no  eternal  world."  In  most  cases,  too,  they  have  been  the 
expression  not  of  fixed  convictions  but  of  transient  moods  of 
mind.  And  among  the  few  theorists  of  pessimism  most  have 
lived  as  if  their  doctrine  were  not  true. 

I  cannot  come  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  no  chief  good 
for  man,  no  real  satisfaction  for  the  human  heart,  were  it  only 
for  this  reason,  that  I  can  perceive  almost  no  one  coming  to 
this  conclusion.  Manifestly  the  human  heart  protests  against 
it.  Manifestly  all  natural  human  lives  belie  it.  There  is  a 
deeply  rooted  feeling  in  us  all  that  we  have  been  made  for 
good  and  not  for  evil,  for  happiness  and  not  for  misery. 
Every  heart  instinctively  seeks  happiness ;  spontaneously  and 
eagerly  grasps  now  at  this  and  now  at  that  in  order  to  get 
happiness.  Disappointment  after  disappointment  cannot  eradi- 
cate this  strong  desire.  "  While  there  is  life  there  is  hope," 
men  say ;  and  at  least  so  long  as  we  live  we  continue  to 
hope. 

Can  a  feeling  so  universal  be  a  delusion?  Can  a  tendency 
so  irresistible  in  every  one  of  us  lead  only  to  disappointment  ? 
Were  it  so,  surely  the  root  of  our  nature  would  be  a  lie,  and 
the  author  of  our  nature  a  deceiver.  No !  so  long  as  I  see 
men  everywhere,  in  all  conditions  of  life,  with  heart  and  hand, 
soul  and  body,  seeking  happiness,  pursuing  a  good  greater 
than  earth  ever  yields  them,  cherishing  a  hope  that  always 
transcends  present  attainment,  I  shall  believe  that  man  has 
been  formed  for  a  good  corresponding  to  his  hope,  one  greater 
than  our  weak  eyes  clearly  discern  or  our  dull  hearts  rightly 
conceive,  a  good  so  grand  and  vast  that  it  will  be  ever  found 
better  and  larger  than  either  our  desires  or  our  hopes. 

If  man  has  a  chief  good,  a  supreme  end,  however,  we  may 
well  ask,  Where  and  how  will  he  find  it  ?  for  it  is  too  obvious 
that  he  very  often  does  not  find  it.  Indeed  there  is  no  man 
who  does  not  in  some  measure  fail  to  find  it ;  who  might  not 
attain  and  enjoy  it  more  fully  than  he  actually  does.     Even 


THE    CHIEF    GOOD.  85 

the  wisest,  best,  and  most  zealous  of  our  race  would  do  well 
to  press  more  earnestly  forward  than  they  do  towards  the 
mark  where  is  the  true  goal  of  human  life.  The  more  clearly 
we  see  what  that  goal  is,  the  more  anxious  we  are  likely  to  be 
so  to  run  that  we  may  not  fail  to  reach  it. 

What  sort  of  good,  then,  must  the  chief  good  be  ?  must  the 
highest  end  of  human  life  be  ?  It  must  necessarily  be  one 
than  which  there  can  be  none  higher  or  better;  than  which 
there  can  be  none  above  or  beyond ;  none  which  will  satisfy 
human  nature  either  more  or  longer.  In  other  words,  it 
cannot  but  be,  if  it  be  at  all,  a  good  which  will  completely 
meet  every  real  want  of  every  human  being ;  which  will 
correspond  to  every  faculty  and  affection  of  human  nature  in 
every  individual ;  which  will  never  cease  to  satisfy  the  human 
soul;  which  will  yield  alike  to  the  humblest  and  to  the  highest 
of  the  children  of  men  a  peace  and  happiness,  a  strength  and 
joy,  which  nothing  else  can  equal.  Whatever  cannot  satisfy 
all  men  at  all  times,  in  all  true  respects  and  in  all  right  ways, 
cannot  be  the  chief  good,  the  good  each  one  of  you  ought 
above  all  things  to  seek  for. 

If  such  must  be  the  chief  good,  you  must  obviously  look  high 
and  far  ahead  before  you  can  be  sure  of  seeing  it.  For 
although  it  be  near  you,  yea,  close  beside  and  around  you,  it 
is  also  far  off,  and  there  are  thousands  of  things  very  near 
to  you  which  you  may  easily  mistake  for  it,  and  which  if  you 
follow  instead  of  it  will  lead  you  to  your  ruin.  All  partial 
and  perishing  goods,  all  contracted  and  petty  aims,  all  ends 
the  pursuit  of  which  will  satisfy  you  only  for  some  particular 
stage  or  period  of  your  lives,  ought  to  be  clearly  distinguished 
by  you  from  the  supreme  good,  the  grand  aim,  the  ultimate 
end  of  life,  to  which  they  ought  always  to  be  subordinate, 
and  with  which  they  are  so  apt  to  be  in  contradiction.  No 
one  who  does  not  thus  distinguish  between  the  chief  good 
and  other  goods  has  yet  really  got  the  mind  of  a  man,  no 
matter  what  his  age  may  be.  The  thoughtlessness  of  child- 
hood is  still  his  predominant  characteristic,  however  long  he 
may  have  outgrown  its  innocence.  To  form  a  reasonable  view 
of  what  is  the  ultimate  object  and  true  ideal  of  life,  a  man 


86  THE    CHIEF    GOOD. 

must  look  upwards  even  to  the  throne  of  God,  and  forwards 
as  far  as  to  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ. 

If  what  has  just  been  said  be  correct,  it  is  obvious  that  there 
are  large  classes  of  things  in  which  we  cannot  reasonably  hope 
to  find  the  chief  good. 

Let  us  look  for  a  few  moments,  first,  at  what  is,  perhaps, 
the  largest  class  of  the  kind,  including  as  it  does  everything 
that  refers  to  our  bodily  life, — all  the  pleasures  of  sense,  all 
the  beauties  and  bounties  of  nature,  all  merely  worldly  ad- 
vantages.    Is  the  chief  good  to  be  found  there  ? 

In  answering  without  hesitation  in  the  negative,  I  feel  not 
the  slightest  need  or  the  slightest  inclination  to  disparage 
any  of  these  things  in  themselves.  They  are  good,  although 
not  the  chief  good.  They  are  gifts  of  a  loving  God,  and 
therefore  good.  Were  they  not  so,  were  they  merely  or 
even  mainly  seductions  and  temptations,  I  cannot  think  that 
He  who  tempteth  no  man  to  evil,  would  have  given  them  so 
liberally ;  that  He  would  have  made  our  bodies  so  susceptible 
of  enjoyment  as  they  are,  all  natural  relationships  so  capable 
of  yielding  pleasure,  the  whole  world  so  beautiful  and  bounti- 
ful. The  ascetic  ideal  of  life  is  not  the  highest,  and  is  certainly 
not  of  universal  obligation.  The  lower  goods  of  life  may  all 
find  a  place  in  relation  to  the  chief  good,  or,  you  may  even 
say,  within  it ;  and  to  give  them  their  due  place  is  a  wiser 
and  a  better  thing  than  unnecessary  abstinence  from  them  or 
sour  disdain  of  them. 

But  the  chief  good  they  are  not.  Experience  abundantly 
shows  this.  No  man  with  a  properly  human  soul  in  his  body 
has  ever  found  full  satisfaction  within  the  visible  world — 
among  the  things  of  time  and  sense.  Where  will  you  find 
in  this  world  the  most  miserable  of  men  ?  Just  among  its 
so-called  men  of  pleasure ;  just  among  those  who  make  the 
pursuit  of  worldly  pleasure  the  chief  or  sole  object  of  their 
lives.  The  more  exclusively  and  strenuously  men  seek  this 
end,  and  the  more  abundant  their  opportunities  and  means 
of  pursuing  it  are,  the  more  certain  are  they  to  find  their 
labour  to  have  been  lost,  and  that  what  they  have  really  earned 
and  obtained  for  themselves  are  disappointment,  shame,  self- 


THE    CHIEF    GOOD.  87 

reproach,  misery.  It  is  just  such  men  who  cry  most  bitterly, 
"  Vanity  of  vanities :  all  is  vanity."  If  a  few  of  them  have 
succeeded  in  stifling  the  cry,  it  is  only  through  having  de- 
stroyed what  was  distinctively  human  and  left  merely  what  was 
animal  in  them.  Until  then,  I  believe,  a  human  being  never 
quite  silences  the  voice  of  the  inner  man  within  him  which 
calls  for  more  than  mortal  food,  for  more  than  earth  can  give. 

Man  cannot  be  satisfied  with  material  goods.  He  cannot 
be  made  happy  according  to  the  measure  of  his  possession  of 
them.  It  is  told  of  Prince  Bismarck  that  when  urged  to 
pass  a  certain  act  on  the  ground  that  it  would  make  dissatisfied 
workmen  contented,  he  replied  that  he  had  never  known  a 
contented  millionaire.  Carlyle  had  previously  declared  his 
belief  that  the  whole  world  would  not  satisfy  the  soul  of  one 
poor  shoe-black,  but  that  if  he  got  it  he  would  grumble  over 
its  defects,  and  want  another.  There  is  no  observant  physician 
or  clergyman,  no  man  who  has  been  brought  much  into  close 
contact  with  diverse  classes  of  his  fellow-creatures,  who  will 
not  tell  you  that  they  have  found  most  unhappy  people  among 
those  who  were  richest  in  the  world's  goods,  and  wonderfully 
contented  people  among  those  who  were  exceedingly  poor. 
What  is  outward  in  a  man's  lot  is  often  far  from  indifferent 
to  his  happiness,  but  the  character  of  his  own  mind  counts 
for  much  more.  The  circle  of  your  acquaintances  in  life  will 
be  limited  if  there  be  not  among  them  some  who  grow  only 
the  more  unhappy  the  less  reason  you,  or  anybody  else,  can 
see  for  their  being  unhappy  at  all.  And  you  may  have  the 
great  privilege  of  knowing  others  who  have  none  of  their 
external,  their  personal,  or  social  advantages,  who  are  even 
weak  and  diseased  in  body,  poor  and  pinched  in  their  circum- 
stances, and  burdened  and  tried  in  various  ways,  so  that  you 
might  almost  think  that  God  had  really  done  little  for  them, 
until  you  discover  that  He  has  given  them  one  of  those  souls 
which,  as  Faber  says,  "  have  the  gift  of  finding  joy  every- 
where, and  of  leaving  it  behind  them  when  they  go ;  so  that 
joy  gushes  from  under  their  fingers  like  jets  of  light ;  and 
their  influence  is  an  inevitable  gladdening  of  the  heart." 

It  would  be  strange  were  experience  in  this  matter  other 
than  what  it  is.     It  would  be  so,  just  because  man  is  man, 


88  THE    CHIEF    GOOD. 

and  as  such  has  a  soul  as  well  as  a  body,  spiritual  affections 
and  faculties  as  well  as  animal  appetites  and  powers.  No 
animal  of  a  higher  nature  can  be  satisfied  with  the  life  of  an 
animal  of  a  lower  nature.  Much  less  must  man,  who  is  more 
or  less  of  a  truly  spiritual  nature,  and  is  thereby  distinguished 
from  all  other  living  creatures  on  earth,  be  capable  of  being 
satisfied  with  what  is  wholly  animal.  He  cannot  but  feel 
degraded  in  his  own  eyes,  and  deserving  the  contempt  of 
his  fellow-men,  if  he  become  the  slave  of  his  body,  if  his 
affections  be  confined  to  earthly  objects,  if  he  content  himself 
with  any  ignoble  happiness. 

All  that  is  merely  earthly  man  must  soon  lose.  He  carries 
no  temporal  advantages  with  him  beyond  the  grave,  and  only 
few  of  them  so  far.  Many  of  them  may  have  proved  to  be 
worth  very  little.     The  value  of  all  of  them  is  strictly  limited. 

God  has,  however,  put  a  sense  of  eternity  and  infinity  into 
the  human  heart,  which  makes  it  impossible  for  anything 
perishable  and  finite  to  satisfy  it.  Hence,  even  if  there  were 
no  eternal  life,  no  life  beyond  the  grave,  and  consequently 
no  good  beyond  what  earth  supplies,  although  such  good 
would  be  the  utmost  to  which  man  can  attain,  and  in  that 
sense  his  chief  good,  yet  it  would  not  be  the  chief  good  which 
sages  and  saints,  which  all  wise  and  good  men,  have  sought; 
not  the  chief  good  in  the  strict  sense;  not  a  comjjletely 
satisfying  good ;  not  the  good  to  which  all  that  is  good  in 
man  tends,  and  in  which  alone  his  whole  nature  can  find  rest 
and  joy.  It  would  give  no  satisfaction  to  what  is  best  in 
his  being.  To  have  to  content  himself  with  it  would  prove 
that  his  nature  is  a  self-contradiction,  and  that  what  is  lowest 
in  it  must  gain  the  victory  over  what  is  highest. 

It  may  be  that  some  one  here  has  doubts  as  to  whether  or 
not  there  is  an  eternal  life  beyond  the  grave.  Such  doubt  is 
possible.  But  is  there  any  one  here  who  doubts  that  there  is 
a  sense  of  eternity  in  his  own  heart  ?  Such  doubt  is,  I  think, 
not  possible  to  a  mind  which  honestly  interrogates  itself.  And 
what  I  say  is  that  that  feeling  of  eternity,  that  spark  of  in- 
finity, which  he  has  within  himself,  which  you  all  have  within 
you,  will  make  it  impossible  for  you  to  be  otherwise  than  dis- 
appointed with  whatever  is  merely  temporal  and  finite. 


THE    CHIEF   GOOD.  89 

Would  that  I  could  get  you  to  believe  this  here  and  now, 
and  to  act  on  it  henceforth.  For  if  you  do  not,  if  instead  you 
seek  your  happiness  only  in  the  goods  which  earth  can  give 
you,  your  lives  must  be  each  a  series  of  disappointments, 
ending  in  your  being  stripped  of  all  which  you  have  toiled  for, 
when  you  have  probably  lost  any  sense  of  or  desire  for  the 
good  which  endureth  for  ever.  But  if,  on  the  contrary,  you 
start  on  your  careers  convinced  that  there  is  within  you  that 
which  earth  cannot  satisfy,  yet  to  which  there  is  a  full  response 
in  God  Himself,  I  feel  sure  that  you  will  so  pass  through  this 
world  as  not  to  be  greatly  disappointed  with  it,  for  you  will 
not  only  have  refrained  from  asking  from  it  what  it  cannot 
give,  but  will  have  learned  that  even  what  is  deficient  and 
seemingly  disappointing  in  it  has  been  useful  to  you,  and 
helped  to  prepare  you  for  the  eternal  life  and  the  infinite  good- 
ness which  you  see  to  be  still  before  you. 

We  cannot  find,  then,  the  chief  good  among  the  objects  of 
sense.  Shall  we  find  it  within  the  sphere  of  mere  intellect — 
in  the  acquisition  of  knowledge,  the  pursuit  of  truth,  the 
culture  of  our  mental  faculties  ?  Now,  undoubtedly,  those 
who  do  seek  for  it  here  seek  it  in  a  higher  and  purer,  and 
therefore  likelier  region  than  those  whose  souls  remain  always 
among  material  things.  They  are  certainly  in  less  danger  of 
utterly  degrading  themselves.  But  will  they  find  what  they 
seek?  Is  the  chief  good  really  where  they  look  for  it?  I 
answer.  No.     And  for  such  reasons  as  the  following. 

A  very  small  portion  of  our  race  has  adequate  opportunities 
for  mental  culture,  and  a  still  smaller  portion  of  it  possesses 
the  faculties  required  for  success  in  intellectual  pursuits. 
There  are  few  so  circumstanced  as  to  be  able  to  spend  their 
lives  in  the  search  after  truth  or  in  the  attainment  of  artistic 
skill.  Originality  of  thought  is  a  very  rare  endowment.  It 
requires  an  amount  of  labour  of  which  few  are  capable  to 
become  even  merely  learned  in  any  considerable  department  of 
knowledge,  and  in  the  course  of  the  labour  how  often  must  a 
mass  of  rubbish  be  gathered  which  is  just  as  worthless  as  cart- 
loads of  material  dross. 

Again,   it  is  easily  possible,  and  very  common,  greatly  to 


90  THE    CHIEF    GOOD. 

exaggerate  the  satisfaction  to  be  found  in  intellectual  pursuits. 
There  are  eulogies  of  these  pursuits  which  might  lead  you  to 
suppose  that  students  of  all  kinds,  scientists,  and  artists,  must 
lead  quite  Elysian  lives.  Most  certainly  such  is  not  the  case. 
Students  in  general  find  it  diflScult  enough  to  secure  an 
ordinary  pass  or  an  average  position  through  a  process  of 
preparation  far  from  wholly  delectable.  And  to  reach  greater 
eminence  means,  not  less  assuredly,  more  pain  rather  than  more 
pleasure.  I  doubt  very  much  if  Mr  Euskin  found  as  much 
enjoyment  in  penning  those  wonderful  and  beautiful  sentences 
which  he  only  could  write,  as  his  readers  have  done.  We  may 
be  certain  that  he  would  have  been  the  first  to  condemn  him- 
self if  they  had  not  cost  him  more  toil  and  trouble  than  his 
readers  imagined.  No  thoroughly  honest  intellectual  work  can 
fail  to  be  largely  painful  work.  Those  who  engage  in  it  must 
expect  to  live  laborious  days,  and  perhaps  to  spend  sleepless 
nights,  and  to  find  the  greater  portion  of  their  time  as  devoid 
of  agreeable  emotion,  as  painful  and  fatiguing,  as  little  satisfying 
as,  say,  even  a  life  of  business. 

But  further,  and  this  is  perhaps  the  most  decisive  considera- 
tion, the  intellect  is  not  what  is  highest  in  human  nature,  nor 
is  its  culture  an  end  in  itself.  The  intellect  is  entitled  to  take 
precedence  of  the  body.  To  be  intelligent,  thoughtful,  wise, 
is  better  than  to  be  handsome,  strong,  or  wealthy.  But  you 
cannot  be  truly  intelligent,  thoughtful,  and  wise,  without 
acknowledging  that  to  be  good,  pure-hearted,  generous,  self- 
denying,  faithful  to  the  obligations  of  duty,  is  nobler  and 
better,  than  to  have  learning,  or  science,  or  culture.  A  man  may, 
indeed,  be  perfectly  justified  in  devoting  himself  mainly  to  the 
prosecution  of  scientific  researches,  or  to  the  study  and  teach- 
ing of  languages,  or  to  the  writing  of  books ;  but  it  can  only 
be  on  the  ground  that  he  is  honestly  convinced  that  he  can 
thereby  do  more  good,  benefit  his  fellow-men,  and  glorify  God 
more,  than  if  he,  with  his  special  aptitudes  and  acquisitions, 
employed  himself  otherwise.  This  is  equivalent  to  saying  that 
just  as  the  body  is  inferior  to  the  intellect,  and  bodily  pleasure 
to  mental  intelligence,  so  is  intellect  itself  inferior  to  con- 
science, and  all  its  endowments  and  acquisitions,  all  learning, 
science,  and  culture  to  virtue  and  duty. 


THE    CHIEF   GOOD.  91 

We  are  thus  forced  to  ask,  Shall  we  find  in  obedience  to 
duty  the  chief  end  of  man  ?  Shall  we  find  in  the  approval  of 
conscience,  in  the  satisfaction  which  flows  from  a  sense  of  the 
fulfilment  of  the  requirements  of  the  moral  law,  the  supreme 
good  of  life  ?  When  we  ask  this  question,  we  cannot  fail  to 
feel  that  we  have  now  come  much  nearer  to  the  solution  of 
our  problem  than  we  have  hitherto  been. 

Obedience  to  the  law  of  duty  is  binding  upon  all.  It  is 
an  obligation  which  rests  upon  all  men,  and  extends  over  the 
whole  nature  of  every  man.  To  have  a  good  conscience,  one 
void  of  offence  towards  God  and  man ;  to  be  blameless  before 
the  entire  moral  law,  would  indeed  be  a  wonderful  blessing,  to 
which  no  bodily  or  merely  intellectual  good  could  be  compared. 
I  am  not  wholly  surprised,  therefore,  that  some  eminent  men, 
like  Kant  and  Renan,  should  have  answered  the  question  before 
us  by  a  decided  yes ;  and  I  fully  agree  with  all  that  they  have 
said  as  to  the  sovereignty  of  conscience,  and  with  the  reasons 
which  they  have  given  for  regarding  obedience  to  the  moral  law 
as  clearly  required  of  us  by  the  very  constitution  of  our  being,  as 
essentially  implied  in  the  end  to  which  our  whole  nature  points. 

Yet  I  do  greatly  marvel,  notwithstanding  this,  that  they 
should  have  been  able  to  imagine  their  answer  to  be  a  sufficient 
one.  Fulfilment  of  the  law  of  duty,  of  the  will  of  God?  Is 
that  not  just  what  we  are  failing  terribly  to  accomplish  ?  Is  not 
one  of  our  chief  wants  want  of  earnest  desire,  of  motive  force,  of 
spiritual  power,  to  achieve  that  ?  Approval  of  conscience  !  Very 
good.  But  what  if  conscience  be  daily  finding  in  us  far  more 
to  condemn  than  to  approve  ?  What  if  it  inflict  more  misery 
by  its  censures  than  it  affords  satisfaction  by  its  commenda- 
tions? Even  the  strongest  and  holiest  of  creatures  must  find 
more  in  their  chief  good  than  mere  moral  law  and  the  approval 
of  conscience.     Assuredly  weak  and  sinful  man  must. 

Where  then  shall  we  find  what  is  needed  to  supplement  and 
complete  the  answer  ?  Only,  it  seems  to  me  manifest,  in  the 
love  of  the  Moral  Lawgiver,  the  love  of  God,  the  highest  and 
worthiest  object  of  our  Love,  Not  in  the  objects  of  mere  sense 
or  of  mere  intellect,  not  in  mere  truth  or  in  mere  law,  can 
the  human  heart  completely  rest,  but  only  in  what  will  fully 
respond  to  its  deepest  want,  its  central  and  most  comprehensive 


92  THE    CHIEF    GOOD. 

affection,  its  very  life ;  only  in  an  unalterable  and  undying,  a 
pure,  holy,  and  all-controlling  love ;  the  love  of  a  Person ;  of 
the  holiest  and  best  Person  the  human  heart  can  love,  and  who 
will  not  fail  to  return  its  love  or  to  give  it  the  consciousness 
thereof;  the  love  of  God,  the  Author  of  all  things,  and  our 
gracious  Heavenly  Father ;  of  God,  who  is  Love,  Infinite  Love. 

This,  then,  my  friends,  I  would  affirm  to  be  the  chief  end  of 
man  and  his  supreme  good — to  love  God  with  the  whole  mind, 
heart,  and  soul — to  love  Him  at  the  very  least  so  strongly  and 
steadfastly  that  obedience  to  His  law  will  be  comparatively 
easy,  and  grow  always  easier,  until  all  resistance  to  it  ceases, 
and  communion  with  Him  is  perfected.  It  would  be  easy  to 
show,  if  time  permitted,  that  this  answer  points  to  a  good 
which  has  all  those  excellences  for  the  want  of  which  we  have 
had  to  set  other  things  aside.  It  is  a  good  accessible  to  all ; 
one  on  which  our  whole  nature  can  concentrate  itself,  with  the 
result  that  every  energy,  faculty,  and  affection,  element  and 
principle  of  it,  will  thereby  be  strengthened  and  improved ; 
one  which,  far  from  lessening  the  sum  of  natural  pleasure,  tends 
greatly  to  increase  it ;  one  which  gives  an  additional  charm  to 
all  that  is  beautiful  and  a  fresh  interest  to  all  that  is  true ; 
one  which  ensures  that  our  intellects  will  take  a  noble  direction 
and  our  benevolence  never  grow  cold;  and  which  is  for  ever 
filled  from  those  inexhaustible 'sources  of  purely  spiritual 
enjoyment  which  are  only  to  be  found  in  direct  and  loving 
communion  with  God. 

This  answer,  you  will  observe,  is  very  much  the  same  as  that 
which  is  given  in  the  Catechism  to  which  I  began  by  referring. 
I  am  not  in  the  least  ashamed,  however,  of  its  entire  want  of 
originality.  For  there  is  only  one  true  answer  to  the  question 
asked,  and  it  was  given  long  ago.  There  is  no  other  real  and 
adequate  solution  of  the  problem,  which  so  many  heathen  sages, 
such  as  Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle,  exercised  all  their  in- 
tellectual power  upon,  than  the  Christian  one.  Socrates,  Plato, 
and  Aristotle  did  not  wholly  fail ;  nay,  they  came  so  near  to  the 
truth  regarding  it,  and  thereby  so  near  to  the  kingdom  of  God, 
that  one  may  hopefully  believe  that  they  are  now  within  it ;  but 
only  He  who  clearly  revealed  the  kingdom  of  God  and  founded 
it,  made  known  the  whole  truth  and  really  solved  the  problem. 


THE    CHIEF    GOOD.  93 

Of  all  the  questions  which  philosophy  has  ever  asked, 
the  question,  What  is  the  chief  end  of  man  ?  is  the  most 
directly  and  intensely  important  to  man ;  and  it  is,  perhaps, 
the  only  one  which  has  got  a  definitive  and  authoritative 
answer.  That  answer  came  not  from  philosophy,  but  through 
the  life,  the  death,  and  the  doctrine  of  Christ.  This  is  no 
disparagement  of  philosophy.  Nay,  I  think  it  is  to  the  im- 
mortal honour  especially  of  Greek  philosophy  that  it  was 
to  so  large  an  extent,  like  Hebrew  prophecy,  the  forerunner 
of  Jesus  Christ.  But,  I  say,  the  answer  to  this  question  has 
been  given,  and  so  given  that  it  is  folly  to  look  for  another. 
The  answer  is  complete.  But  it  is  not  to  be  concealed  that 
there  is  one  great  difficulty  connected  with  it.  How  are  we 
to  get  such  a  love  of  God  as  it  requires?  To  that  question, 
Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle  had  nothing  to  say,  and  like 
the  wise  men  they  were  silent.  And  so  far  as  I  know  no  one 
has  come  after  them  who  has  had  anything  of  worth  to  say 
regarding  it  who  was  not  content  virtually  to  repeat  what 
Christ  had  said,  to  point  to  the  love  of  God  as  revealed  through 
Him,  and  to  urge  acceptance  of  His  Gospel.  "  Come  unto 
Me."  "  I  am  the  Way,  and  the  Truth,  and  the  Life ;  no  man 
cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  Me." 

The  Christian  life  must  begin  with  a  great  act  of  renuncia- 
tion. Self  and  the  world  must  be  cast  out  that  God  may  come 
in.  Love  to  Him  must  be  supreme.  Love  to  self  and  the 
world  must  be  crucified  in  order  that  Christ  may  be  followed. 
But  thus  to  renounce  all  is  to  gain  all ;  thus  to  die  is  to  begin 
truly  to  live ;  thus  to  abjure  all  is  to  ensure  a  higher  enjoy- 
ment of  all.  He  that  loves  God  with  all  his  heart  and  serves 
Him  with  all  his  powers,  working  here,  with  a  self-forgetting 
devotion,  in  the  world  where  God  has  planted  him,  willing  to 
forego  pleasure,  gain,  renown,  and  everything  else  for  the 
approval  of  God,  shall  find  that  everything  comes  back  to  him 
in  its  essential  strength  and  spirit  and  with  rich  additions, 
seeing  that  God  is  not  merely  in  all,  but  includes  all,  is  all,  and 
"  will  withhold  no  good  thing  from  them  that  walk  uprightly." 

May  He  bless  what  has  now  been  spoken.  And  to  His 
name  be  glory  for  ever.     Amen. 


VIII. 
OUR  FATHER  IN  HEAVEN. 

"  Our  Father  which  art  in  heaven." — Matthew  vi.  9. 

OUR  Lord's  prayer  is  the  most  wonderful  prayer  which  has 
ever  been  offered  up  to  God ;  as  far  superior  to  all  other 
prayers  as  our  Lord  to  all  other  men ;  so  extremely  simple  as 
to  suit  well  the  lips  of  little  children,  so  rich  and  full  of  truth 
and  feeling  that  the  profoundest  mind  cannot  exhaust  either 
the  wisdom  or  the  love  of  any  sentence  in  it.  And  its  sentences 
are  not  more  remarkable  in  themselves  for  largeness  and  depth 
of  meaning,  combined  with  brevity  and  plainness  of  wording, 
than  for  the  perfection  of  their  arrangement,  each  being 
precisely  in  that  place  in  which  it  gets  most  meaning  from 
the  others  or  gives  most  meaning  to  them. 

The  sentence  on  which  I  would  have  you  to  meditate  with 
me  at  this  time — trusting  that  God  may  bless  our  meditations — 
is  what  is  often  called  the  preface  to  the  Lord's  Prayer. 
Its  connection  with  the  rest  of  the  prayer  is  obvious.  It  is 
manifestly  intended  to  bring  us  into  the  true  spirit  and  frame 
of  prayer ;  to  make  us  feel  in  whose  presence  we  are ;  that 
we  are  before  the  God  of  the  whole  world,  the  Creator  of  all 
men  ;  that  while  we  are  on  earth  He  is  in  heaven,  high  and 
lifted  up  above  all  praise  and  all  adoration ;  yet  that  He  is  not 
severe  to  us  in  our  creaturely  weakness  and  sinful  unworthi- 
ness,  but  gracious,  and  loving,  and  anxious  that  we  should 
draw  near  to  Him,  and  pray  to  Him  as  what  He  really  is — 
a  Father  to  us. 

This  frame  of  mind,  this  childlike  confidence  combined  with 
that  awful  reverence  which  is  due  from  such  feeble  creatures 
as  we  are  to  then-  Almighty  Creator,  this  rejoicing  sense  of 
God's  fatherly  love  to  us,  along  with  the  deep  consciousness 
of  His  greatness  and  holiness,  is  not  a  natural  and  common 
but  a  very  peculiar  and  exceptional  frame  of  mind.     Thus  to 


OUR   FATHER   IN    HEAVEN.  95 

pray  is  not  an  easy  but  a  very  diflScult  thing.  The  whole 
religious  history  of  the  human  race  proves  it  to  be  indeed  most 
difficult.  Perhaps  wherever  men  are — certainly  almost  wherever 
men  are — you  will  find  them  with  some  sort  of  religion,  some 
sense  of  a  will  or  wills  higher  than  their  own  to  which  they 
stand  in  some  relation  and  must  yield  some  sort  of  homage ; 
but  nowhere  outside  of  revealed  religion,  nowhere  in  the  whole 
wide  extent  of  what  is  called  heathendom,  will  you  find  them 
drawing  near  to  God,  intelligently  and  lovingly,  without  undue 
fear  on  the  one  hand  or  undue  familiarity  on  the  other,  as 
children  to  their  Father  in  heaven.  In  every  religion  there 
are  some  elements  of  truth ;  wherever  men  have  sincerely 
sought  after  God  they  have  been  privileged  to  get  some 
glimpses  of  His  presence — He  has  never  left  Himself  without 
a  witness — and  yet  a  clear  and  consistent  knowledge  of  His 
Fatherhood  has  never  been  attained  by  any  searching  of  man, 
and  will  be  sought  as  vainly  in  the  highest  forms  of  the 
greatest  heathen  religions  as  in  the  lowest  and  rudest.  The 
voice  of  all  heathendom  is  but  as  the  voice  of 

"  An  infant  crying  in  the  night ; 
An  infant  crying  for  the  light ; 
And  with  no  language  hut  a  cry." 

The  history  of  all  heathendom  proves  that  in  vain  has  man, 
God's  self-willed  child,  ever  tried  to  get  of  itself  out  of  the 
darkness  into  which  it  has  wandered  back  to  the  light,  back 
to  the  sight  of  its  Father's  countenance.  It  is  not  the  child 
who  has  found  its  father;  it  is  the  father  who  has  gone  and 
found  his  child. 

Under  the  Old  Testament  dispensation  itself  we  do  not  find 
that  men  prayed  as  our  Lord  has  here  taught  us  to  do,  or  even 
that  they  were  encouraged  so  to  pray.  In  the  Old  Testament, 
God  is  spoken  of  under  divers  names,  as  God  Almighty,  the 
Lord,  the  Lord  God,  the  Lord  Jehovah,  the  God  of  Abraham, 
the  Holy  One  of  Israel ;  -but  these  names  either  indicate  what 
He  is  in  Himself  or  refer  to  His  relationship  not  to  individuals 
but  to  the  Je\vish  nation  as  a  covenant  people.  In  the  com- 
paratively few  passages  in  the  Old  Testament  where  God  is 
distinctly  spoken  of  as  a  Father,  the  name  is  almost  always 


96  OUR    FATHER    IN    HEAVEN. 

used  in  the  latter  of  these  ways ;  the  child  to  whom  He  is 
Father  being  no  individual  but  Israel  or  Ephraim,  the  covenant 
people,  or  some  tribe  or  portion  of  it.  And  there  was  an 
obvious  and  sufl&cient  reason  why  this  should  have  been  so. 
It  is  impossible  to  take  a  comprehensive  view  of  the  Old 
Testament  dispensation  without  perceiving  that  its  great  aim, 
alike  in  its  ceremonial  observances,  moral  precepts,  and  pro- 
phetic teaching,  was  to  open  and  deepen  the  sense  of  sin,  to 
give  reality  and  intensity  to  the  recognition  of  moral  law,  to 
make  known  especially  that  aspect  of  God's  character  which 
we  call  His  righteousness,  His  holiness. 

It  was  not  possible — nor  was  it  in  the  nature  of  things 
fitting — that  the  knowledge  of  God's  fatherly  love  and  mercy 
should  go  before  the  knowledge  of  His  holiness  and  hatred 
of  sin ;  it  required,  on  the  contrary,  to  be  based  on  it.  For 
although  it  is  only  in  the  light  of  God's  fatherhood  that  sin 
appears  as  hideous  as  it  really  is,  and  only  in  connection  with 
it  that  God's  holiness  is  to  be  seen  in  all  its  beauty,  yet  without 
a  considerable  knowledge  of  sin  and  holiness,  without  a  certain 
depth  of  hatred  of  the  one  and  love  to  the  other,  the  revelation 
of  God's  fatherly  love,  were  it  intelligible  at  all,  could  be  only 
hurtful.  Hence  a  reason,  I  say,  why,  although  the  revelation 
of  God's  fatherhood  be  undoubtedly  contained  in  the  Old 
Testament,  it  is  but  little  prominent  there,  whereas  the  pre- 
vailing spirit  of  the  New  Testament  is  emphatically  a  spirit  of 
adoption,  a  spirit  which  cries,  "  Abba,  Father." 

And  this  same  fact  that  we  cannot  think  aright  of  God  as 
a  Father,  that  we  cannot  truly  go  to  Him  as  children,  if  we 
leave  out  of  sight  His  holiness  or  forget  our  own  sinfulness, 
makes  it  a  difficult  thing  even  now  for  any  of  us  to  utter 
as  we  ought  those  simple  words :  "  Our  Father  in  heaven." 
That  is  a  fact  the  New  Testament  never  allows  us  to  forget. 
It  is  no  accidental  or  exceptional  thing  that  God's  fatherhood 
and  holiness  should  be  so  closely  connected  as  they  are  in  this 
prayer,  that  the  name  of  God  as  our  Heavenly  Father  should 
be  no  sooner  pronounced  than  a  supplication  should  follow  that 
it  may  be  hallowed ;  no  accidental  or  exceptional  thing,  but 
an  instance  of  a  principle  or  rule  which  goes  all  through  the 
New  Testament.     To  know  how  difficult  it  is  to  say  aright, 


OUR   FATHER   IN   HEAVEN.  97 

that  is,  feeling  the  truth  and  preciousness  of  what  we  say, 
"  Our  Father  in  heaven,"  and  to  feel  in  consequence  how 
greatly  the  Spirit  is  needed  to  enable  us  to  overcome  the 
difficulty — how  large  a  measure  of  the  Spirit  is  required  in 
order  that  we  may  utter  truly  that  one  word,  "  Abba,  Father  " 
— let  us,  prayerfully,  inquire  what  it  means — what  our  text 
means. 

Now,  first,  it  plainly  means  at  least  this,  that  God  stands  in 
a  close  living  relationship  to  us ;  that  He  is  directly  connected 
with  us,  and  has  practically  to  do  with  us  and  we  with  Him. 
The  relation  of  father  and  son  is  that  of  person  with  person, 
yea,  the  nearest  and  most  binding  which  can  connect  two 
persons.  Well,  there  is  a  vast  amount  of  thought  and  speech 
in  the  world  about  God  which  overlooks  this  fact,  or  at  any  rate 
takes  no  account  of  it.  There  is,  for  instance,  a  great  deal  of 
reasoning  about  the  Divine  Existence,  as  to  whether  the  argu- 
ments for  that  are  good  and  sufficient  or  not ;  then,  there  is  a 
great  deal  of  speculation  now,  as  there  has  been  for  ages  past, 
about  the  Divine  Nature,  about  what  we  mean  when  we  say 
God  is  Infinite.  Eternal,  the  Absolute  Being,  the  First  Cause, 
&c. ;  and  there  is  a  still  greater  amount  of  discussion  and  inquiry 
as  to  what  creation,  history,  and  especially  Scripture  tell  us 
about  the  attributes  and  ways  of  God.  And  there  is  certainly 
nothing  blamable  in  such  thought  in  itself;  if  wisely  con- 
ducted it  is,  on  the  contrary,  highly  to  be  commended.  There 
are  some  here  whose  daily  business  it  is  thus  to  occupy  their 
minds,  and  they  may  justly  regard  such  occupation  as  a  pecu- 
liarly exalted  and  noble  one  ;  but  let  none  of  us  forget  this, 
that  we  may  have  our  minds  full  of  such  thought,  full  of 
thoughts  about  God,  and  yet  that  God  Himself  may  not  be  in 
all  our  thoughts. 

For  God  Himself  is  no  mere  problem  or  conclusion  of  our 
minds,  no  abstraction  or  doctrine,  but  an  Infinite  living  Being 
or  Person,  one  who  thinks,  feels,  and  wills,  who  hates  evil  and 
loves  good,  and  who  is  nearer  us,  more  closely  present  to  us, 
more  concerned  and  interested  in  us,  than  any  fellow-creature 
can  be.  The  knowledge  of  God  which  does  not  bring  us,  as  it 
were,  face  to  face  with  Him  as  a  living  Person,  which  is  not 
accompanied  with  a  sense  of  His  real  presence,  may  be  in  some 

O 


98  OUR    FATHER    IN    HEAVEN. 

respects  deep  and  subtle  and  comprehensive,  it  may  include  a 
whole  system  of  religious  speculation  or  divinity,  but  it  will  not 
enable  us  to  utter  in  a  right  spirit,  or  even  with  true  intelli- 
gence, the  first  word  of  Christian  prayer.  If  that  be  our  only 
knowledge  of  God  we  may  have  the  whole  of  it  in  our  minds 
when  we  say  "  Our  Father  in  heaven,"  and  yet  the  little  child 
who  ignorantly  thinks  of  God  as  having  the  form  of  a  man,  and 
as  sitting  on  a  material  throne  above  the  clouds,  but  who  really 
feels  that  God  is  seeing  and  hearing  and  loving  him,  will  say 
them  with  far  more  truth  and  profit  than  we.  In  the  heart  of 
sinful  man  there  is  a  rooted  unwillingness  to  have  to  do  with 
God  Himself,  a  shrinking  from  realising  that  He  the  Holy  One 
and  Father  of  our  spirits,  is  really  here  where  we  are,  a  sense 
of  restraint  and  discomfort  in  the  consciousness  of  His  presence 
if  we  are  following  any  self-willed  course  of  our  own,  akin  to 
what  a  profligate  son  has  under  the  eye  of  a  wise  and  upright 
earthly  father ;  and  so  there  is  a  strong  temptation  on  us  to 
substitute  for  the  real  and  living  knowledge  of  God  Himself  a 
mere  knowledge  of  notions  and  doctrines  about  Him,  a  know- 
ledge which  may  be  quite  true  in  its  way,  but  which  is  surely 
not  all  the  knowledge  that  sons  ought  to  have  of  a  father,  nay, 
which  proves,  if  it  be  all  the  knowledge  we  have  of  God,  that 
the  feeling  of  His  fatherhood,  the  true  life  of  sonship,  is  yet 
unquickened,  unborn  in  us. 

Again,  the  words  under  consideration  mean  that  God  feels 
towards  men  as  a  father  towards  his  children  ;  that  He  regards 
them  as  His  offspring,  and  has  a  deep  and  tender  affection  to 
them  in  consequence ;  that  underneath  all  His  conduct  towards 
them  is  the  same  sort  of  love  and  care  which  a  good  man  shows, 
although  in  a  feebler  and  lower  degree,  towards  his  sons  and 
daughters  here  on  earth.  The  signs  or  evidences  of  this  being 
truly  the  case,  of  God's  having  a  father's  heart  towards  men, 
are  scattered  over  all  the  world,  which  was  made  in  part  for  the 
instruction,  comfort,  and  use  of  men,  may  be  traced  in  His 
manifold  dealings  with  them  in  providence,  and  shine  out 
most  conspicuously  of  all  in  the  wonders  of  redemption.  But 
neither  in  creation,  providence,  nor  redemption  are  we  to  look 
for  more  than  signs  or  evidences,  than  effects  or  consequences 
of  God's  fatherly  love.     We  need  not  seek  in  any  of  them  for 


OUR    FATHER   IN    HEAVEN.  99 

its  causes  or  sources  or  explanation.  It  was  before  them  all ; 
in  some  measure  explains  them  all,  while  in  no  measure  does 
any  one  of  them  explain  it.  It  is  the  root ;  they  are  its  flowers 
and  fruit. 

God's  fatherhood  rests  not  on  creation  and  providence,  but 
has  its  principle  in  the  love  which  prompted  creation  and 
underlies  providence.  He  has  not  merely  made  Himself  to  be 
our  Father  by  creating  and  preserving  us,  but  He  has  created 
and  preserved  us  because  of  a  Fatherly  love  to  us  which  had  no 
beginning.  It  is  no  superfluous  knowledge  which  the  Scripture 
gives  us,  but  most  blessed  and  precious  truth,  when  it  insists  so 
often  and  emphatically  that  the  love  wherewith  God  has  loved 
us  was  one  which  dated  from  long  before  the  world  was,  yea,  a 
love  which  was  from  everlasting.  Out  of  that  everlasting  love 
of  the  Eternal  Father's  heart  arose  redemption ;  and  only  from 
a  love  of  wondrous  depth  and  tenderness  could  it  have  arisen. 

There  are  those  who  speak  as  if  God  were  only  in  some  very 
cold  and  distant  way  the  Father  of  unregenerate  men ;  as  if 
He  were  their  Father  in  name  merely  and  not  in  fact ;  as  if  He 
were  a  Father  merely  because  He  gave  them  existence  and 
health,  success  in  business,  domestic  comforts,  and  the  blessings 
of  civilisation,  but  all  without  any  real  love  to  them,  any  wish 
that  these  things  might  do  them  true  good  ;  but  that  is  surely 
the  hard  unjust  thought  of  a  heart  which  knows  God  ill,  and 
which  has  got  miserably  darkened  and  confused  through  the 
working  of  some  evil  and  ungenerous  passion,  or  of  some 
nan'ow  and  erroneous  doctrine.  Were  it  true,  how  could  any 
of  us  ever  have  come  to  be  saved  ?  We  were  all  unregenerate 
— all  without  Christ  once — and  if  God  had  only  been  in  some 
cold  and  distant  way  our  Father  He  would  assuredly  never 
have  made  such  a  sacrifice  as  sending  Christ  to  die  for  us.  The 
fact  of  such  a  redemption  as  that  having  been  provided  at  all 
is  of  itself  the  fullest  proof  of  God  having  loved  us  with  an 
everlasting  love,  and  of  His  having  never  ceased  to  be  in  the 
most  real  and  loving  sense  a  Father,  even  in  our  lowest  depths 
of  sin  and  misery.  It  was  the  gift  of  God's  unspeakable  love  to 
unregenerate  men,  and  so  could  not  be  the  cause  of  His  love, 
while  it  of  its  very  nature  tells  us  that  be  we  who  or  what 
we  may  we  have  a  Father  in  heaven  truly  concerned  about  us. 


100  OUR  FATHER  IN  HEAVEN. 

yea,  one  full  of  thoughts  and  feelings  of  inconceivable  love  to 
us ;  that  if  we  are  living  without  a  Father's  love  it  is  because 
we  are  wilfully  rejecting  it ;  that  however  prodigal  we  have 
been  we  have  only  to  arise  and  go  to  Our  Father,  assured  that 
we  shall  find  every  word  of  that  great  parable  of  the  prodigal 
son  marvellously  true,  that  we  shall  find  that  even  "when  yet  a 
great  way  ofi^,  our  Father  will  see  us  and  have  compassion,  and 
run  and  fall  on  our  necks  and  kiss  us,"  since  His  eye  has 
been  following  us  with  pity  through  all  our  waywardness  and 
wanderings  from  Him,  and  His  heart  sincerely  desiring  our 
return,  so  that  He  is  quick  to  behold  the  first  movements  of 
our  souls  towards  Him  and  to  hear  the  first  faint  sighings  of 
our  hearts  after  Him,  and  most  ready  to  clothe  us  with  the  best 
robes,  to  give  us  the  royal  ring  of  the  children  in  His  house, 
and  to  feast  us  with  the  fatted  calf,  in  His  great  gladness  that 
His  son  who  was  dead  is  alive  again ;  that  His  lost  child  is 
found. 

I  would  here  guard  myself,  however,  from  a  possible  mis- 
conception. Through  Christ  God  is  seen  to  be  our  Father,  not 
made  our  Father.  There  was  no  need  that  Christ  should  die 
in  order  that  God  might  have  a  Father's  love  to  us,  but  Christ 
died  to  reveal  to  us  that  He  had  it.  Now,  some  here  are 
aware  that  those  who  have  done  most  in  recent  times  by 
speech  and  writing  to  bring  this  fact  into  due  prominence 
in  Christian  thought  and  life,  to  confirm  men's  faith  in  the 
fatherhood  of  God,  are  blamed  by  many  for  unsettling  faith 
in  the  Atonement.  They  have  so  insisted,  it  is  said,  on  God's 
fatherly  love  to  all  men  as  virtually  to  imply  that  there  can 
have  been  no  other  barrier  to  free  and  full  communion  between 
God  and  the  sinner  than  the  unwillingness  of  the  sinner  to  be 
reconciled  to  God.  And  I  fear  there  is  considerable  truth  in 
the  charge,  although  doubtless  it  has  often  been  exaggerated, 
and  often er  still  applied  where  it  ought  not  to  have  been. 

Since  it  seems  possible  then  so  to  look  at  the  truth  of  God's 
fatherhood  as  that  it  shall  overshadow  and  obscure  instead  of 
illuminating  and  beautifying  that  of  His  Son's  atonement,  let 
me  say  that  I  cannot  but  think  such  a  way  of  looking  at  it 
must  be  a  wrong  one,  and  that  it  seems  to  me  as  unnatural 
that   faith    in    God's    fatherhood    should    lead   to   undervalue 


OUR  FATHER  IX  HEAVEN.  101 

faith  in  Christ's  atonement,  as  that  faith  in  Christ's  atone- 
ment should  have  been  sometimes  so  inculcated  as  to  confuse 
and  weaken  faith  in  the  Eternal  Father's  love. 

God  had  always  a  father's  love  to  us.  Does  it  follow  that 
He  has  had  only  love  to  us  ?  Has  a  good  father  among  men 
no  sense  of  justice,  of  right  and  wrong,  in  the  character  and 
conduct  of  his  children  ?  Has  he,  because  he  is  their  father, 
no  anger  against  their  sins  ?  Has  he  no  hatred  against  a  vile 
crime,  if  only  a  son  of  his  be  the  doer  of  it  ?  I  can  ascribe 
no  such  character  to  any  good  man.  And  far  less  dare  I 
ascribe  it  to  God.  Some  persons  tell  us  that  they  shrink 
from  ascribing  anger,  hatred,  wrath  to  God.  But  I,  for  my 
part,  shrink  with  my  whole  soul  from  the  thought  of  a  God 
incapable  of  anger,  hatred,  wrath.  One  must  have  a  God 
whom  one  can  respect,  and  it  is  impossible  to  respect  any 
one — man  or  God — who  has  no  anger  or  hatred  against  sin, 
who  can  look  upon  what  is  morally  vile  without  that  abhor- 
rence which  may  justly  be  called  wrath.  There  are,  indeed, 
an  anger,  a  hatred,  and  wrath  abounding  among  men,  which 
are  evil  in  themselves  and  work  great  evil,  being  excited  by 
personal  and  selfish  motives,  directed  on  improper  objects, 
and  kept  under  no  due  regulation ;  but  there  are  also  a  hatred, 
anger,  wrath,  which  are  not  weaknesses  but  excellences,  which 
are  as  needful  in  the  world  as  love,  and  far  more  needful  than 
much  of  the  superficial  benevolence  which  falsely  passes  for 
love ;  and  these,  like  all  other  excellences,  must  be  in  God  in 
a  supreme  degree.  A  merely  amiable  God  must  be  like  a 
merely  amiable  man,  a  being  devoid  of  moral  principle,  a 
being  not  to  be  trusted,  yea,  a  being  incapable  of  true  love, 
for  love  and  hate  are  so  far  inseparable  that  the  power  of  the 
one  is  ever  the  measure  of  the  power  of  the  other. 

God  loved  us  even  in  our  lost  estate  with  an  inconceivable 
fatherly  love.  True.  But  did  He  not  love  Christ,  His  only 
begotten  Son,  still  better  than  He  loved  us  ?  And  must  He 
not  have  had  the  most  awful,  infinite  reasons  for  giving  Him 
over  to  death?  Could  the  difiiculties  of  the  case  have  been 
overcome  in  any  other  way  surely  that  way  would  not  have 
been  taken ;  that  it  was  taken  is  proof  that  terrible,  infinite 
difficulties  had   to  be   encountered.     The  very  nature   of  the 


102  OUR  FATHER  IN  HEAVEN. 

atonement,  the  very  magnitiide  of  the  sacrifice  involved  in  it, 
makes  it  incredible  that  it  was  merely  a  reconciling  of  man 
to  God,  even  apart  from  the  many  passages  of  Holy  Scriptures 
which  contradict  that  view. 

While,  then,  want  of  fatherly  love  in  God  could  never  be 
the  hindrance  to  our  receiving  the  blessings  our  souls  need,  it 
does  not  follow  that  the  eternal  laws  of  righteousness  broken 
by  us  placed  no  difficulties  in  the  way  of  that  love  flowing 
freely  forth ;  that  they  were  not  barriers  to  its  reaching  us, 
which  only  the  atonement  could  remove ;  obstacles  not  in 
our  nature  but  in  the  Divine  Nature,  and  so  far  beyond  the 
sphere  of  our  influence  and  control.  It  may  be  said  that  this 
implies  the  love  which  they  kept  back  from  us  to  be  limited. 
But  not  at  all.  Love  is  not  so  measured.  It  may  turn  its  re- 
straints into  the  proof  of  its  vastness,  its  intensity,  its  infinity ; 
and  this,  as  I  believe,  is  just  what  the  love  of  God  has  done. 
It  is  not  when  we  think  of  it  as  having  had  no  obstacles  to 
overcome  in  order  to  reach  us,  but  when  we  take  account  of 
these,  that  we  conceive  most  warmly  and  feel  most  warmly  as 
regards  it. 

Yes,  God's  love  had  great  obstacles  to  overcome  ere  it  could 
reach  us  to  save  us.  No  wisdom  less  than  God's  could  have 
devised  that  it  should  reach  us  at  all.  No  power  less  than 
God's  could  have  carried  into  execution  what  His  infinite 
wisdom  had  devised,  and  no  love  less  than  God's  could  have 
taken  that  marvellous  way  and  struggled,  as  it  were,  down 
to  us  through  the  incarnation,  life,  sufferings,  and  death  of 
His  Son,  to  rise  up  on  Calvary  as  a  fountain  of  healing  to 
the  nations.  But  that  power  has  reached  us.  God,  working 
slowly  and  surely  through  ages,  has  perfected  on  the  Cross 
of  His  Son  a  mighty  plan  by  which  He  can  be  just  and  yet 
justify  His  sinful  children,  ay,  and  crown  them  with  all  His 
loving-kindnesses  and  tender  mercies.  Whatever  obstacles 
previously  existed  in  the  righteousness  of  the  Divine  Nature 
to  this  have  now  been  completely  and  for  ever  removed 
through  God's  fatherly  love  having  found  the  mysterious, 
the  awful,  the  blessed  method  of  atonement  and  sacrifice  to 
reach  us  with  all  its  blessings. 

The  atonement  of   Christ,  then,  far  from  standing  in   any 


OUR  FATHER  IN  HEAVEN.  103 

relation  of  opposition  or  exclusion  to  the  eternal  and  universal 
fatherhood  of  God,  can  only  be  regarded  as  the  way  which 
His  fatherly  love  was  necessitated  to  take  in  order  that,  con- 
sistently with  the  justice  of  His  nature  and  the  moral  fitness 
of  His  universe,  He  might  seek  and  find,  deliver  and  save, 
His  lost  children.  And  this  leads  me  to  the  further  remark 
that  it  is  only  in  the  atoning,  self-sacrificing  work  of  Christ 
that  we  have  perfectly  convincing  evidence  of  God's  father- 
hood, an  adequate  disclosure  of  His  having  a  father's  heart 
towards  us.  I  have  already  said  that  there  are  signs  or 
evidences  of  God's  fatherly  love  in  creation  and  providence, 
and  I  in  no  way  think  I  retract  or  explain  away  that  state- 
ment when  I  add  that,  unless  seen  in  the  light  reflected 
on  them  from  redemption,  they  will  appear  only  an  in- 
complete proof  of  God's  cherishing  fatherly  love  to  sinful 
men.  In  the  light  of  the  Cross  it  is  otherwise ;  the  man  who 
looks  at  the  works  of  creation  in  that  light  will  unhesitatingly 
and  with  full  reason  say,  "My  Father  made  them  all,"  and 
will  easily  and  clearly  trace  in  all  the  dealings  of  providence 
a  father's  hand  guiding  His  children. 

Suppose,  however,  that  blessed  light  not  shining  or  shut  out, 
and  that  creation  and  providence  are  before  us  in  no  other  light 
than  their  own,  and  what  then  can  they  teach  us  about  God  ? 
Substantially  just  this — that  He  has  vast  power,  since  He  has 
created  and  sustains  and  controls  the  whole  of  this  mighty 
universe ;  wondrous  wisdom,  since  He  lias  arranged  everything 
so  well  and  directs  everything  so  well ;  and  a  goodness  corre- 
sponding to  His  power  and  wisdom,  since  a  beneficent  purpose 
may  be  detected  underlying  all  His  works  of  creation,  and  per- 
vading the  course  of  providence.  I  cannot  see,  and  can  scarcely 
suppose  even  that  any  one  will  seriously  maintain,  that  creation 
and  providence  teach  us  more  than  that  God  is  thus  powerful 
and  wise  and  good ;  and  fully  granting  that  they  teach  us  all 
this,  if  any  one  mean  by  God's  being  the  Father  of  men  no 
more  than  that  He  is  as  good  as  He  is  powerful  and  wise,  and 
that  His  power  and  wisdom  have  been  so  employed  on  behalf 
of  men  that  good  gifts  meet  them  at  every  step,  I  readily  agree 
that  creation  and  providence  are  sufficient  to  show  God  to  be 
a  Father  in  that  sense  and  to  that  extent. 


104  OUR  FATHER  IN  HEAVEN. 

But  is  there  nothing  more,  nothing  higher  than  that,  implied 
in  fatherhood  among  men  ?  Unquestionably  there  is.  Love 
in  the  form  of  mere  goodness  is  far  from  the  noblest  and  most 
distinctive  quality  in  a  human  father's  heart ;  nay,  there  is  no 
true  fatherliness  of  heart  at  all  in  a  man  in  whom  there  is 
nothing  better  than  that.  One  can  by  an  effort  of  imagination 
indeed  conceive  a  man  to  have  children  so  absolutely  innocent 
and  happy,  and  so  perfectly  guarded  from  all  possibility  of  evil 
and  suffering,  that  love  in  the  form  of  goodness  or  kindness 
would  be  the  only  kind  of  love  he  could  show  them ;  but  would 
his  fatherly  love  be  ever  really  tested  in  that  case  ?  Could  he 
ever  show  the  deeper,  the  truly  distinctive  feelings  of  a  father's 
heart,  those  we  so  often  see  manifested  in  the  toils,  the  hard- 
ships, the  dangers,  the  sacrifices  of  wealth,  comfort,  and  even 
life,  which  parents  undertake  and  endure  for  their  children? 
Certainly  not. 

Well,  apply  this  to  God.  In  what  sense  is  He  a  father  ?  In 
what  sense  has  He  fatherly  love  ?  Among  the  angels  this 
question  could  have  no  place,  for  they  were  such  perfectly 
innocent  and  happy  children,  that  love  in  the  form  of  goodness 
was  all  they  required — all  that  could  be  shown  to  them.  And 
it  would  have  been  the  same  with  men  also  if  they  had  not 
fallen.  But  as  soon  as  sin,  suffering,  and  death  invaded  earth 
and  seized  on  man's  body  and  soul,  and  help  or  healing  there 
was  none  for  him  in  any  creature,  the  most  awful  of  questions 
for  the  human  race  came  to  be  whether  or  not  God  was  a 
father  in  the  full  meaning  of  that  term,  or,  in  other  words, 
whether  or  not  He  had  a  love  which,  in  order  to  save  men, 
would  submit  to  humiliation,  suffering,  sacrifice  ? 

Now,  that  is  what  I  say  creation  and  providence  cannot  prove. 
Point  to  anything  in  creation  or  to  anything  in  ordinary  pro- 
vidence which  you  can  show  to  have  cost  God  anything.  You 
can  easily  point  to  thousands  and  thousands  of  things  and  events 
which  you  may  justly  conclude  to  be  signs  or  gifts  of  God's 
goodness,  but  can  you  point  to  one  thing  in  creation,  one  event 
in  ordinary  providence,  which  you  can  seriously  maintain  to 
come  from  a  self-sacrificing  love  such  as  a  father  displays  when 
he  rushes  into  a  house  in  flames  or  throws  himself  into  a  raging 
flood  to  save  the  life  of  his  child  at  the  risk  of  his  own?     If 


OUR  FATHER  IN  HEAVEN.  105 

you  cannot,  you  fail  to  prove  God  a  father  in  the  sense  I  mean. 
And  in  that  sense,  which  is  the  true  sense,  there  seems  to  me 
no  possibility  of  proving  God  a  father  from  creation  and  pro- 
vidence apart  from  redemption. 

Wherein  is  it  that  both  fail  ?  Obviously  in  this,  that  they 
can  show  us  no  traces  of  sacrifice  on  God's  part.  But  it  is  just 
here  that  redemption  comes  in.  God  in  the  unspeakable  gift 
of  His  Son  shows  us  a  power  of  sacrifice  infinitely  above  anything 
known  among  men,  an  intensity  of  tenderest  fatherly  affection 
of  which  the  strongest  fatherly  affection  on  earth  is  but  a  pale 
and  feeble  reflection ;  and  Christ  in  His  incarnation,  life,  suffer- 
ings, and  death,  reveals  to  us  not  merely  the  power,  and  wisdom, 
and  goodness  of  God,  but  the  very  depths,  if  we  may  so  speak, 
of  His  heart  as  a  father,  enabling  us  to  feel  without  a  doubt 
that  now  indeed  are  we  the  sons  of  God. 

Leaving  unwillingly  much  unsaid  on  this  part  of  my  subject, 
I  remark,  further,  that  our  text  distinctly  calls  us  to  remember 
that  God  while  our  Father,  truly  our  Father,  is,  however,  our 
heavenly  Father,  our  "Father  which  art  in  heaven."  We  must 
not  cease  to  stand  in  awe  of  Him  because  He  is  our  Father ; 
we  must  not  lose  remembranee  of  His  majesty  in  the  thought 
of  His  love ;  we  must  still  realise  who  He  is  and  who  we  are ; 
where  He  dwells  and  where  we  dwell ;  that  He  is  God  over  all, 
but  specially  present  so  far  as  the  manifestation  of  His  glory  is 
concerned  in  the  high  and  holy  heavens,  where  His  royal 
court.  His  presence  chamber.  His  imperial  throne  are,  and 
where  His  ministering  spirits  are  the  glorious  angels  and  the 
blessed  saints,  who  offer  Him  sinless  services  and  spotless 
praises ;  while  we  are  creatures  of  the  earth,  worms  of  the  dust, 
with  the  pollution  of  earthly  mire,  of  carnal  appetite,  of  worldly 
passion  on  all  we  do. 

Yet  is  He  nevertheless  most  truly  our  Father,  and  therefore 
the  fact  that  He  is  our  Heavenly  Father,  while  it  should  humble 
and  awe  our  souls  in  His  presence,  should  also  raise  and 
encourage  them,  elevate  them  out  of  the  dust  of  the  earth, 
make  them  ashamed  of  all  unworthy  grovelling  therein,  and 
set  them  instead  to  soar  in  contemplation  and  desire  towards 
heaven,  as  their  true  dwelling-place.  If  our  Father  be  in 
heaven,  heaven  must  be  our  home.     And  we  on  earth  must  be, 


106  OUE  FATHER  IX  HEAVEN. 

as  has  been  said,  King's  children,  who  have  been  put  out  to 
nurse,  and  sent  to  school  at  a  distance  from  the  palace  to  be 
brought  up  hardily  and  disciplined  by  divers  kinds  of  trials, 
until  we  have  learned  steadiness  and  self-knowledge  enough  to 
be  admitted  into  our  Father's  glorious  mansions.  It  would 
assuredly  ennoble  our  lives  if  we  would  take  this  view  of  them, 
which  is  as  true  as  it  is  grand ;  if  we  would  look  up  to  heaven 
as  our  true  home,  where  our  Father  is,  and  carry  the  thought 
of  heaven  always  about  us,  as  of  a  society  closely  and  mani- 
foldly related  to  us,  as  of  a  place  specially  belonging  to  us,  as 
where  we  specially  belong  to,  and  whither  in  due  season  we 
shall  not  fail  to  be  called,  if  only  we  strive  to  prepare  ourselves 
for  that  exceeding  great  honour  and  blessing. 

There  is  yet  another  truth  which  has  always  been  seen  to 
be  contained  in  the  opening  words  of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  a 
truth  of  vastest  importance.  God's  fatherhood  involves  man's 
brotherhood.  If  we  have  "  one  God  and  Father,"  then  "  all  we 
are  brethren."  Christ  recognises  this  truth,  and  would  have 
us  to  recognise  it  when  He  teaches  us  to  pray  "  Our  Father  " 
or  "  Father  of  us,"  i.e.  my  Father,  but  the  Father  of  all  other  men 
as  well  as  of  me.  We  can  only  draw  near  to  the  Father  in  a 
spirit  of  sympathy  with  His  other  children ;  we  cannot  ask  any 
blessing  aright  if  we  ask  it  selfishly,  wishing  that  we  may  get  it 
but  that  others  may  not.  The  Father  in  heaven  will  not  listen 
to  any  son  who  does  not  wish  well  to  his  brothers,  much  less 
who  wishes  any  of  them  ill.  This  is  another  reason  why, 
although  it  is  very  easy  to  commit  the  Lord's  Prayer  to  memory, 
it  is  very  hard  to  get  the  heart  to  learn  it. 

Is  it  not  sometimes  a  difficult  thing  even  for  those  who  live 
in  the  same  house,  and  who  on  the  whole  respect  one  another, 
or  are  even  in  the  main  sincerely  attached  to  one  another,  to 
lay  entirely  aside,  when  they  kneel  together  before  God  in  the 
evening,  every  petty  disagreement  which  may  have  occurred 
during  the  day,  every  feeling  of  bitterness  and  estrangement, 
so  as  to  be  able  to  say  with  all  due  heartiness  of  affection 
towards  one  another,  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  "  Our  Father,"  as 
the  dear  children  God  would  have  them  to  be  ?  And,  of  course, 
it  is  still  more  difficult  sincerely,  rightly,  to  say  it  in  a  congre- 
gation where  there   are  many  whom  we  do  not  know,  more 


OUR  FATHER  IN  HEAVEN.  107 

whom  we  know  little,  where  social  distinctions  and  differences 
of  opinion  come  in,  where  there  are  rich  who  despise  the  poor 
and  poor  who  envy  the  rich,  where  there  are  persons  so  selfish 
in  disposition,  or  it  may  be  even  so  vicious  in  conduct  that  we 
cannot  respect  them,  or  persons  whose  worldly  interests  are  all 
opposed  to  our  owm,  or  persons  with  whom  we  may  have  quar- 
relled during  the  week,  and  may  know  that  it  is  not  unlikely 
we  shall  have  to  quarrel  with  again  this  week.  But  if  we 
would  be  God's  children  we  must  be  able  to  say  it.  We  must 
overcome  our  indifference,  feel  that  where  there  may  be  much 
to  despise  there  is  still  more  to  be  affectionately  concerned 
about,  and  that  we  must  never  be  so  angry  with  any  one,  as 
that  love  does  not  underlie  and  pervade  our  anger,  so  that  even 
in  our  estrangement  and  opposition  we  can  from  the  heart 
wish  him  every  good  thing  we  ask  for  in  the  Lord's  Prayer. 
Perhaps  we  can  scarcely  ask  any  better  thing  than  that  we 
may  all  be  able  to  do  this  for  one  another,  and  may  never 
feel  so  separated  by  anything  from  any  one  that  we  cannot 
truly  pray  with  and  for  him,  cannot  carry  his  sins  to  God's 
throne  with  the  earnest  wish  that  they  may  be  forgiven  as  well 
as  our  own.  or  cannot  desire  that  he  may  receive  everything 
truly  for  his  good. 

It  is  only  on  God's  Fatherhood  that  the  brotherhood  of  men  can 
be  surely  rested.  There  is  no  other  foundation  strong  or  broad 
enough.  We  have  in  our  own  age  seen  the  truth  of  this  illustrated 
on  the  vastest  scale.  We  have  seen  a  great  neighbouring  nation 
pronouncing  with  fervent  enthusiasm  and  inscribing  on  all  her 
banners  the  word  "  fraternity  " ;  we  have  seen  her  people,  in 
many  respects  a  most  noble  and  generous  people,  vowing  with 
the  utmost  solemnity  before  Europe  to  be  "  brothers  "  hence- 
forth for  ever ;  we  have  seen  following  fast  on  that  enthusiasm 
strife  and  discord  and  intestine  war,  until  the  great  and  sacred 
name  of  fraternity  was  a  word  of  light  ridicule  in  the  mouths 
of  men ;  we  have  seen  despotism  arise  on  the  ruins  of  that  so- 
called  fraternity ;  we  have  seen  its  terrible  fall ;  and  we  have 
since  seen  long  unrest.  How  came  that  about  ?  How  but 
mainly  from  this,  that  a  multitude  of  these  "  brothers  "  acknow- 
ledged no  Father  in  heaven,  and  thought  they  could  make  of 
France  a  happy  household,  yet  keep  out  of  it  and  have  nothing 


108  OUR  FATHER  IN  HEAVEN. 

to  do  with  the  rightful  Father  of  every  household  and  rightful 
authority  in  every  nation.  They  did  not  believe  that  "  except 
the  Lord  build  the  house,  the  builders  build  in  vain  "  ;  but  it 
proved  lamentably  true,  and  it  always  will. 

But  how  has  it  come  to  pass,  then,  that  in  these  last  days 
so  many  men  in  France,  in  Germany,  in  England,  should  be 
believing  in  human  brotherhood  and  striving  to  realise  it,  yet 
disbelieving  in  God  and  regarding  Christianity  as  an  imposi- 
tion, as  an  enemy  ?  Oh,  my  friends,  I  fear  there  is  no  doubt  as 
to  what  the  answer  must  be ;  that  it  is  just  because  those  who 
have  professed  themselves  to  be  Christians  have  not  proved 
themselves  to  be  brothers  to  their  fellow-men.  Far  more  than 
any  other  cause  that,  I  believe,  is  the  reason  of  the  infidelity 
and  irreligion  which  abound.  It  is  one  which  lies  at  the  door 
of  professing  Christians.  If  we  would  not  have  our  Father's 
name  more  and  more  dishonoured ;  if  we  would  not  have 
Christ's  work  more  and  more  neglected  and  despised ;  if  we 
would  not  have  the  blood  of  our  brethren  on  our  hands,  the 
loss  of  their  souls  on  our  heads,  oh  let  us  show  that  our  love  to 
God  is  real  by  the  working  of  our  love  to  men. 

Let  us  love  others  as  He  loves  us  all,  so  that  when  we  leave 
the  world  we  shall  have  brought  nearer  the  day  when  His 
Fatherhood  will  be  universally  acknowledged,  when  the  wail  of 
the  oppressed  shall  never  more  pierce  the  air,  when  the  seas  of 
the  world  shall  never  more  be  dyed  with  blood,  when  all  human 
eyes  shall  have  a  divine  light  shining  in  them,  when  all  human 
voices  shall  have  a  heavenly  melody  of  truth  and  love  singing 
through  them,  when  no  human  countenance  shall  have  the 
mark  of  the  beast  or  the  brand  of  the  devil  on  it,  when  the 
whole  family  of  mankind  shall  form  an  electric  chain  of  sym- 
pathy and  love,  when  from  all  the  nations  of  men  there  shall 
arise  one  sweet  and  sacred  hymn  of  praise  to  Him  who  hath 
loved  us,  and  hath  washed  us  from  our  sins  in  His  own  blood, 
and  hath  made  us  kings  and  priests  unto  God  and  to  His  Christ 
for  ever.     Amen. 


IX. 

THE   DIVINE   WILL. 

"Thy  Will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven." — Matthew  vi.  10. 

IF  we  ask  God  only  for  such  things  as  we  ought  to  ask  from 
Him,  it  is  impossible  to  ask  for  more  in  any  prayer,  how- 
ever long,  than  we  ask  for  in  the  Lord's  Prayer,  although  it  is 
so  very  short.  It  is  possible  to  pray  a  long  time  and  yet  to  pray 
very  little,  and  the  Lord's  Prayer  shows  us  how  much  prayer 
may  be  in,  yea,  how  all  prayer  may  be  in,  a  very  few  simple 
words.  It  is  true  that  man  has  wants  without  number ;  that 
there  are  countless  things  which  he  needs  to  ask  from  God ; 
but  it  is  also  true  that  all  these  wants  may  be  resolved  into  a 
few  great  wants,  and  all  these  things  sought  for  in  a  few  com- 
prehensive petitions ;  and  Christ,  with  His  perfect  knowledge 
of  all  our  wants,  and  perfect  sympathy  with  all  our  weaknesses, 
has  in  this  prayer  summed  up  for  us  all  prayer  with  such  a 
wonderful  simplicity  and  such  a  wonderful  completeness,  that 
while  a  little  child  can  not  only  easily  remember,  but  easily 
understand  it,  no  man  among  all  the  millions  of  the  human 
race  can  need  anything  which  he  may  not  ask  for  simply  by 
repeating  it  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 

But  in  this  prayer  itself,  which  is  so  comprehensive  as  to 
contain  all  prayer,  there  is  one  petition  so  comprehensive  that 
it  may  be  said  to  contain  all  its  other  petitions ;  one  petition  to 
which  all  the  others  may  be  referred ;  into  which  they  all  may 
be  resolved.  And  this  petition  is  that  on  which,  in  dependence 
on  God's  blessing,  I  wish  to  make  a  few  remarks  to  you  at  this 
time.  This  all-comprehensive  petition,  the  organic  and  vital 
centre,  the  heart,  yea,  the  very  sum  and  substance,  of  the 
Lord's  Prayer,  and  of  all  true  prayer,  is,  "  Thy  Will  be  done  on 
earth  as  it  is  in  heaven."  God's  name  can  be  hallowed  only 
by  His  Will  being  done, — God's  kingdom  comes  only  in  the 
measure  that  His  Will  is  done, — the  bread  we  ask  for  is  only 


110  THE    DIVINE    WILL. 

what  will  give  us  strength  to  do  God's  Will, — the  sins  we  pray- 
to  be  forgiven  are  ovir  acts  of  resistance  to  His  Will ; — the 
temptations  we  seek  not  to  be  led  into  are  whatever  things 
would  entice  us  from  obedience  to  His  Will, — and  the  evil  or 
the  Evil  One  we  beseech  Him  to  deliver  us  from  is  the  enemy 
of  His  Will,  that  wicked  antagonistic  will  which  is  the  awful 
mystery  and  the  chief  cause  of  the  misery  of  this  world. 

And  why  is  this  prayer  thus  central  in  the  Lord's  prayer  ? 
Why  does  it  thus  pervade  and  organise  it  into  a  beautiful 
whole  ?  Just  because  it  is  God's  Will  which  is  central  in  the 
universe,  which  underlies  and  pervades  the  worlds  both  of 
nature  and  spirit,  and  is  the  source  of  whatever  order  and 
beauty  they  possess.  Prayer  that  God's  Will  may  be  fully  and 
rightly  done  is  the  first  of  all  prayers,  and  a  prayer  which  in- 
cludes all  other  prayers,  because  God's  Will  itself  is  the  first  of 
all  things  and  the  source  of  all  blessings  ;  because  apart  from 
that  will  there  is  nothing  which  ought  to  be  prayed  for ;  be- 
cause only  in  and  through  it  can  any  good  thing  come  to  us. 

Let  us  think  for  a  moment  what  the  true  place  of  that  Will 
is  in  the  world.  What  is  its  place  in  nature,  mere  nature, 
nature  as  distinguished  from  Spirit  ?  We  are  far  from  know- 
ing either  precisely  or  fully  what  its  place  there  is.  It  may 
perhaps  be,  as  many  thinkers  have  supposed,  a  far  wider  one 
than  either  ordinary  men  or  the  general  body  of  scientific  men 
believe  ;  it  may  be  not  only  the  cause  and  preserving  and  con- 
trolling power  of  nature  but  its  substance,  its  self.  It  may  be 
that  matter  is  essentially  force,  and  nothing  but  force;  that 
the  whole  material  universe  is  ultimately  resolvable  into  forces  ; 
and  that  all  these  forces  are  but  manifestations  or  outgoings  of 
the  force  of  Will.  ■  If  so,  the  whole  universe  is  not  only  de- 
pendent on  but  is  the  Will  of  God,  and  has  no  being  of  any 
kind  apart  from  the  Will  of  God.  But  whether  this  "  maybe," 
this  speculative  hypothesis,  be  true  or  false,  what  is  certain  is 
that  God's  Will  originated  nature  at  the  first,  and  that  nature 
owes  whatever  order,  beauty,  use,  it  yet  has  to  His  Will. 
Created  by  His  Will,  it  has  been  preserved  and  governed  by 
His  laws,  and  these  laws  not  only  do  not  in  any  way  compete 
with,  exclude,  or  limit  His  Will,  but  they  are  the  expressions  of 
His  Will.     They  are  directly  or  indirectly  the  modes  in  which 


THE    DIVINE    WILL.  Ill 

His  Will  works,  and  works  itself  out  by  them  into  all  the  love- 
liness and  grandeur,  into  all  the  harmonies  and  utilities,  all 
the  serenity,  joy,  and  gladness,  which  fill  the  heavens,  the 
earth,  the  sea.  God's  Will,  then,  sustains,  pervades,  beautifies, 
and  animates  nature,  —  clothes  each  lily,  feeds  each  bird, 
uttereth  itself  in  speech  day  unto  day,  and  showeth  knowledge 
night  unto  night.  We  may  say  of  it  with  all  sober  truthful- 
ness— 

"  Flowers  laugh  before  Thee  on  their  beds, 
And  fragrance  in  Thy  footing  treads  ; 
Thon  dost  preserve  the  stars  from  Avrong  ; 
And  the  most  ancient  heavens,  through  Thee,  are  fresh  and  strong." 

When  we  pass  from  the  world  of  mere  nature  into  that  of 
spirit,  we  find  that  God's  Will  equally  underlies,  pervades,  and 
rules  it.  It  is  true  that  His  Will  here  manifests  itself  under  a 
very  different  form.  It  no  longer  appears  as  laws  which  are 
uniform  and  irresistible  in  their  action,  as  laws  the  swing  of 
which  is  unquestioned  and  unopposed,  but  as  a  something  still 
more  worthy  of  our  awe  and  admiration,  as  a  mighty  plan 
which  comprehends  within  its  calculations  all  the  resistance 
of  millions  of  hostile  wills,  which  realises  itself  not  only  in 
spite  of  that  resistance  but  through  it,  which  slowly  and 
silently  and  surely  unfolds  itself  amidst  all  the  selfishness  and 
pride,  confusion,  and  tumult,  and  war,  which  abound  on  this 
rebellious  earth.  Dark  and  chaotic  as  human  history  may  at 
first  sight  look,  abandoned  as  it  may  have  often  seemed  to 
brute  force,  despotic  caprice,  heartless  greed,  and  ruthless 
cruelty,  not  faith  only  but  reason  too  may  find  that  there  is 
always  something  deeper  in  it  than  these ;  an  Infinite  Will 
which  uses  or  baffles  finite  wills ;  an  Infinite  Will  which  never 
loses,  which  unceasingly  advances  to  the  accomplishment  of 
its  purposes  of  wisdom,  justice,  and  mercy.  Yes,  as  certainly 
as  the  study  of  nature  leads  to  the  knowledge  of  laws  by  which 
God  governs  nature  even  in  what  seems  to  us  most  minute, 
obscure,  or  remote,  so  certainly  does  the  study  of  history  lead 
to  the  knowledge  of  a  system  of  order  within  which  God  has 
embraced  even  the  deeds  recorded  in  the  darkest  and  saddest 
pages  of  the  annals  of  the  world.     No  thoughtful  student  of 


112  THE    DIVINE    WILL. 

history  can  fail  to  perceive  that  in  the  barbarian  invasions, 
in  the  feudal  system,  in  the  Papacy,  in  battles,  conquests, 
massacres,  revolutions,  God  has  been  present,  not  suffering 
them  to  fall  out  of  His  hand,  but  making  them  work  together 
for  good,  and  compelling  the  very  iniquity  and  wrath  of  man 
to  praise  Him.  Were  God  not  thus  ever  mightily  and  merci- 
fully present  it  would  be  impossible  to  support  the  sight  of 
such  spectacles  as  the  world  often  presents.  Assuredly  it  were 
better  not  to  live  at  all  than  to  live  where  God's  Will  did  not 
overrule  human  wills.  But  a  world  of  mere  human  wills,  a 
world  of  wills  not  overruled  by  the  Divine  Will,  is  a  thing  for 
ever  impossible.  Were  God's  Will  withdrawn  even  for  an 
instant  from  nature,  nature  would  dissolve  into  chaos,  ay, 
sink  into  nothingness ;  and,  not  less,  were  God's  Will  withdrawn 
even  for  an  instant  from  history,  would  history  fall  into  chaos, 
into  nothingness. 

But  God's  Will  manifests  itself  in  another  form  than  either  as 
laws  of  nature  or  plan  of  providence.  It  manifests  itself  in  the 
laws  of  conscience,  the  laws  of  moral  and  religious  life.  God's 
Will  as  expressed  in  the  laws  of  nature  is  not,  and  cannot  be, 
resisted  even  in  appearance,  and  as  expressed  in  the  laws  of 
providence  it  can  be  resisted  only  in  appearance.  These  latter 
laws  so  embrace  as  to  baffle  all  attempts  to  put  them  aside. 
Acts  of  resistance  to  God's  Will  fall  within  His  providential 
plan  equally  with  acts  of  obedience.  To  defeat  every  act  of 
resistance,  to  make  it  subserve  another  end  than  the  doer  of  it 
intended,  and  to  punish  it, — that  is  a  part  of  His  plan.  God's  plan 
of  providence  is  essentially  the  same  thing  as  those  decrees  of 
God  which  theologians  often  speak  of  in  so  abstract  and  empty 
a  way,  but  which  are  notwithstanding  very  jaractical  and  awful 
realities,  which  we  cannot  escape  from,  which  we  cannot  alter, 
and  which  are  done  on  earth  at  this  moment,  just  as  perfectly 
as  they  will  ever  be,  just  as  perfectly  as  they  are  done  in 
heaven. 

But  God's  Will  in  the  form  of  moral  law  is  of  a  very  different 
nature.  It  may  be  resisted  ;  it  may  be  set  aside.  That  we  can 
set  it  aside — in  that  consists  our  responsibility.  That  we  do 
set  it  aside — in  that  lies  our  sin.  Is  this,  then,  a  lower  form  of 
God's  Will  ?   less  important  ?   less  essential  ?     Most  certainly 


THE    DIVINE   WILL.  113 

not.  This  is  the  highest  form  of  all ;  the  holy  of  holies  of  the 
universe.  The  laws  of  nature  have  all  a  reference  to  the  plan 
of  providence,  and  are  subservient  to  it ;  and  the  whole  plan  of 
providence  has  a  reference  to  the  final  triumph  of  truth  and 
righteousness,  and  is  subservient  thereto.  God's  designs,  God's 
purposes,  never  let  us  speak  of  them  as  arbitrary,  never  let  us 
speak  of  them  even  as  so  secret  that  we  must  be  utterly 
ignorant  of  what  they  are  and  what  they  mean.  There  is  much 
about  them  which  we  do  not  and  cannot  know,  but  we  do 
know  their  essential  character  and  meaning,  and  know  it  as 
certainly  as  we  know  that  there  is  a  God  at  all.  We  know  that 
they  are  righteous  and  merciful,  and  that  they  mean  that 
righteousness  and  mercy  will  prevail  in  the  end,  everything 
which  exalts  itself  against  them  being  certain  to  be  cast  down; 
that  God's  power  and  wisdom  work  to  vindicate  and  establish 
holiness ;  that  His  laws  of  nature  and  of  providence  have  for 
goal  the  reign  of  the  laws  of  righteousness. 

God's  holiness  has,  however,  spoken  directly  for  itself.  The 
broken  laws  of  righteousness  have  had  a  far  more  wondrous 
testimony  borne  to  their  inherent  sanctity,  and  to  their  place  in 
the  world,  and  their  place  in  the  thoughts  of  God,  than  either 
nature  or  ordinary  providence  could  offer.  God  has  left  man  to 
find  out  and  glorify  His  other  laws  in  such  ways  as  he  can 
himself  devise,  but  these  laws  which  you  and  I  can  so  easily 
set  aside,  and  which  we  are  so  apt  to  make  light  of,  God  has 
specially  and  wondrously  stooped  from  heaven  in  order  to 
magnify  and  make  honourable.  The  manifestation  of  Himself 
which  He  has  presented  to  us  in  His  Son  is  from  beginning  to 
end  a  monument  to  their  majesty.  Christ,  our  Saviour,  who 
taught  us  to  pray,  "  Thy  Will  be  done  on  earth,  as  it  is  in 
heaven,"  lived  as  He  prayed.  His  whole  work  as  our  Saviour 
was  a  carrying  out  of  His  saying,  "  Lo,  I  come  to  do  Thy 
Will,  0  Lord."  It  was  "  His  meat  to  do  the  will  of  the  Father 
that  sent  Him."  His  every  act  was  an  act  of  subjection  to  that 
Father's  Will ;  He  suffered  no  other  will  to  be  in  Him ;  and 
when  it  called  him  to  bear  the  scourging  of  Pilate,  the  jeering 
of  Herod,  the  buffeting  of  the  soldiers ;  to  give  His  back  to 
the  smiters.  His  cheeks  to  them  that  plucked  off  the  hair,  His 
face  to  shame  and  spitting  ;  to  carry  His  cross,  to  hang  on  it, 

H 


114  THE    DIVINE    WILL. 

to  die ;  He  accepted  it  without  a  murmur  or  complaint,  assert- 
ing no  will  of  His  own,  but  saying  always,  "  Father,  Thy  Will  be 
done," — "  Father,  not  as  I  will,  but  as  Thou  wilt."  His  incar- 
nation, life,  sufferings,  and  death,  are  the  great  illustrations  of 
the  prayer  He  taught  us,  and  show  us  clearly  why  He  gave  this 
petition  regarding  God's  Will  the  place  in  it  which  He  did. 
They  tell  us,  as  nothing  else  could,  what  place  He  thought  due 
to  God's  righteous  will  or  moral  law  in  the  universe ;  what 
reverence  is  paid  in  heaven  to  that  law,  not  only  by  the  angels, 
but  by  Him  who  is  infinitely  higher  above  the  highest  angels 
than  they  are  above  us.  And  no  one  who  has  in  any  measure 
come  under  the  influence  of  these  facts,  no  one  who  has  in  any 
measure  felt  the  power  of  Christ's  work  and  example,  can  fail 
to  feel  that  the  Will — the  moral  Law — of  God  is  of  all  things 
the  most  sacred,  the  most  worthy  of  our  admiration  and  praise, 
and  of  our  praying  and  striving  to  obey,  and  to  do. 

It  has  by  some  been  deemed  a  want  in  the  Lord's  Prayer,  a 
something  which  makes  it,  although  it  may  have  been  perfect 
before  Christ's  death,  inadequate  now  as  an  expression  of  the 
feelings  of  Christian  men,  that  there  is  no  reference  in  it  to  the 
atonement  or  sacrifice  of  Christ.  But,  perhaps,  few  will  find  the 
opinion  well  founded.  Of  course,  there  is  no  explicit  reference 
to  Christ  and  His  work,  but  we  have  only,  I  think,  to  remember 
who  taught  us  the  prayer,  and  how  He  lived  in  the  spirit  of 
this  "  Thy  Will  be  done,"  how  He  suffered  and  died  in  it,  and 
we  shall  feel  His  whole  life,  work,  atonement,  brought  nearer 
us  by  these  words  than  almost  any  other  words,  even  the  most 
explicit,  could  bring  them.  Certain  it  is  that  only  when  we 
can  say  "  Thy  Will  be  done "  in  the  spirit  in  which  it  was 
taught  us,  that  is,  when  we  can  say  it  in  truth,  has  Christ's 
work  of  sacrifice  and  atonement  come  to  have  any  personal 
meaning  or  worth  to  us.  Christ's  working  out  this  petition  in 
His  life  and  death  was  the  atonement,  and  only  through  bring- 
ing us  into  the  same  life,  so  that  what  the  petition  asks  for 
is  the  deepest  want  of  our  life,  has  His  work,  His  sacrifice, 
accomplished  in  any  degree  its  end  in  us. 

Having  said  this  much  as  to  the  place  generally  of  the 
petition  in  prayer  and  life,  and  of  the  place  of  God's  Will  in  the 
universe,  I  have  now  briefly  to  consider  what  is  implied  in  the 


THE    DIVINE   WILL.  115 

petition  itself.  And  first,  I  may  say,  this  is  implied  in  it,  that 
God's  Will  ought  to  be  done  on  earth  but  is  not  done.  The 
very  asking  that  it  should  be  done  is  a  confession  that  it  is 
not  done.  We  have  reason  to  rejoice  that  the  Lord  reigneth 
in  nature  and  providence,  but  we  do  not  need  to  pray  that 
He  would  do  so  as  we  need  to  pray  that  He  wonld  reign 
over  our  hearts  and  wills  ;  it  is  a  subject  for  gratitude  and 
praise  that  His  laws  of  nature  and  the  designs  of  His  providence 
are  executed  as  they  are,  but  no  subject  for  petition  just  because 
they  are  executed  perfectly,  and  there  is  no  real  possibility 
of  resisting  them ;  but  with  His  will  as  manifesting  itself  in 
righteousness  it  is  otherwise,  for  it  can  be  disobeyed,  and  our 
prayer  for  its  being  obeyed  is  itself  an  admission  of  its  being 
disobeyed.  The  confession  is  a  very  sad  one  to  have  to  make, 
but  there  can  be  no  religion  in  any  man  until  it  is  made  in  all 
sincerity ;  there  can  be  no  spiritual  good  for  any  man  until  he 
feels  the  bitterness  of  living  in  revolt  against  the  perfectly 
good  and  righteous  wUl  of  his  God  and  Father  in  heaven; 
until  he  feels  that  it  is  a  truly  horrible  thing  to  be  in  rebellion 
asrainst  the  Infinite  holiness  and  Infinite  love  of  the  Will  that 
made  and  rules  the  world. 

We  all  know  that  although  an  earthly  father  may  not 
always  command  wisely  or  even  kindly,  nothing  but  mischief 
can  come  from  children  discarding  his  authority  and  doing 
only  what  pleases  themselves ;  that  acceptance  of  his  will  is, 
in  general,  the  condition  of  everything  good,  of  all  happiness,  in 
family  life.  Well,  we  shall  do  no  good  in  this  world  until  it  is 
our  sincerest,  inmost  conviction  that  the  disorder,  shame,  and 
misery  of  a  family  whose  members  have  thrown  off  all  respect 
for  the  law  or  will  of  its  head,  can  but  feebly  represent  the 
disorder,  shame,  and  misery  involved  in  revolt  against  the 
Will  of  our  Father  in  heaven.  We  all  know  that  rebellion 
even  against  a  human  government  is  a  terrible  thing,  which 
can  be  justified  only  in  the  most  extreme  circumstances,  only 
when  the  government  is  thoroughly  reckless  and  immoral  and 
endangers  the  essential  liberties  or  very  existence  of  a  nation, 
because  the  horrors  of  civil  war  are  so  awful,  and  its  results, 
even  when  the  leaders  of  the  revolt  are  at  the  outset  both  able 
and  virtuous,  so  uncertain ;  that  a  civil  government  or  rule  to 


116  THE    DIVINE    WILL. 

serve  as  the  one  presiding,  fixed,  regular  will  in  a  common- 
wealth is  so  essential,  that  were  it  completely  withdrawn  for  a 
month,  even  from  a  country  so  far  instructed  in  Christianity 
and  generally  enlightened  as  our  own,  and  were  every  man 
thus  left  to  do  as  he  pleased,  the  evil  done  in  that  one  month 
would  outbalance  the  good  done  in  many  years,  if  not  centuries. 
And,  assuredly,  if  we  fancy  that  a  recognition  of  the  spiritual 
government  of  men  is  less  essential  to  their  welfare  than  the 
recognition  of  the  civil  government  of  them,  that  can  only  be 
accounted  for  by  our  being  spiritually  dead  and  consequently 
spiritually  blind.  "Wherever  there  is  a  living  spiritual  eye  it  is 
seen  that  obedience  to  a  governing  Will  is  still  more  essential  in 
the  spiritual  than  in  the  family  or  civil  life,  and  disobedience  to 
it  a  still  more  dreadful  thing.  It  is  seen  that  this  disobedience 
has  no  excuse,  since  here  the  law  is  never  foolish,  harsh,  or 
wrong,  but  always  absolutely  wise,  just,  and  merciful.  It  is 
seen  that  this  disobedience  must  spread  out  into  disobedience 
in  the  family,  in  the  state,  everywhere.  It  is  seen  that  nothing 
but  boundless  evil  can  come  of  it ;  that  it  is  explanation  enough 
of  all  the  woes  of  earth. 

But,  in  the  second  place,  this  petition  means  that  we  are 
prepared  to  submit  or  sacrifice  our  own  wills  to  the  Will  of 
God.  It  cannot  mean  less  to  us  than  this  if  we  present  it 
with  the  least  sincerity.  "  Thy  Will  be  done," — therefore  not 
ours  so  far  as  they  are  different  from  Thine.  But  that  means 
the  entire  surrender  and  sacrifice  of  our  wills.  For  this 
Will  of  God  which  we  pray  to  be  done  is  the  will  or  law  of 
a  perfect  righteousness.  There  is  no  righteous  act  whatever 
in  any  department  of  life  which  it  does  not  enjoin,  and  none 
which  we  are  not  bound  to  do  because  it  enjoins  it.  If  our 
own  will,  therefore,  is  never  to  be  followed  in  matters  of 
righteousness  where  different  from  God's  Will  it  can  never  be 
followed  as  ours  at  all,  since  it  must  always  surrender  itself 
to  God's  Will.  These  two  facts,  that  God's  Will  is  the  law  of 
a  perfect  righteousness,  and  that  His  Will  is  the  will  which 
is  to  rule,  necessitate  the  inference,  that  man's  will  has  no 
lawful  independence  in  matters  of  righteousness,  no  right  in 
any  such  matter  to  self-assertion,  but  is  bound  always  to  give 
itself  completely  over  to  God's  Will.     These  two  truths,  I  say, 


THE    DIVINE   WILL.  117 

necessitate  that  inference,  and  the  man  who  faces  these  truths 
and  honestly  in  his  heart  and  life  accepts  the  inference  is  a 
religious  man ;  the  man  who  does  not  is  still  a  worldling. 

The  sort  of  connection  between  God  and  man  which  I  now 
speak  of,  and  which  in  our  test  we  ask  for,  the  connection  of 
a  living  finite  will  with  the  living  infinite  Will,  is  the  only 
sort  of  connection  which  will  hold.  Any  sort  of  connection 
less  intimate,  as,  for  instance,  not  only  through  the  mere  in- 
tellectual acceptance  of  Divine  truths,  but  even  through  any 
kind  of  faith  which  stops  short  of  an  actual  yielding  of  our 
selves,  our  wills,  to  the  Will  of  God,  or  through  any  kind  of 
feeling  which,  however  admirable,  does  not  involve  the  thorough 
change  of  nature  which  God's  Will  replacing  ours  supposes, 
will  not  hold  but  will  break  in  the  hour  of  trial.  God  is  a  Will, 
a  righteous  Will,  and  as  it  is  the  very  nature  of  a  will  to  act, 
to  work,  He  would  act,  work,  in  us  and  through  us,  act  and 
work  righteousness,  and  only  if  we  acquiesce  in  this  purpose 
of  God,  only  if  we  say  to  Him  sincerely  in  our  lives  as  well 
as  with  our  lips,  "Thy  Will  be  done,"  only  then  will  the 
blessed  aim  of  Christ's  redeeming  love  and  sufferings  be 
accomplished  in  us,  and  we  shall  never  be  put  to  shame. 

For  a  man  thus  to  renounce  his  own  will  in  favour  of  the 
Will  of  God,  so  far  from  implying  any  loss  of  true  manhood, 
any  peculiar  weakness  or  defect  of  manhood,  is  to  accept  and 
realise  his  only  true  state  as  a  moral  being,  so  that  the  more 
complete  his  renunciation  the  more  perfect  a  man  is  he.  We 
sometimes  hear  men  in  prayer  confess  it  as  a  sin,  "  that  they 
cannot  of  themselves  think  any  good  thought  or  will  any  good 
deed,"  but  such  inability  is  no  sin,  is,  on  the  contrary,  the 
very  condition  of  true  moral  action  in  a  creature,  was  in  Adam 
before  the  fall,  and  is  in  every  angel  now.  Were  the  highest 
angel  to  fancy  it  could  think  a  good  thought  of  itself,  and  will 
a  good  act  otherwise  than  through  the  Divine  Will,  the  very 
fancy  would  be  the  fall  of  that  angel.  Out  of  God's  Will  there 
is  no  moral  strength  for  man  or  angel.  A  will,  a  strong  will, 
is  what  we  all  need.  There  is  no  better  endowment.  Were 
it  given  me  to  choose  between  a  strong  and  sound  intellect 
and  a  strong  and  right  will,  I  should,  without  hesitation,  prefer 
the  latter.     I  know  nothing  more  lamentable  than  the  spectacle 


118  THE    DIVINE    WILL. 

of  a  man  of  good  intellect,"  but  of  feeble  will,  who  is  afraid  of  the 
anger  of  this  man  or  of  losing  the  favour  of  that,  who  cannot 
be  trusted,  who  deceives  others  and  is  untrue  to  himself,  not 
from  ignorance  of  the  right  or  from  malice  or  to  gain  any  de- 
cided personal  advantage,  but  from  mere  weakness  of  character, 
weakness  of  will.  We  need  a  strong  will,  but  if  such  a  will 
in  us  be  anything  else  than  a  strong  cleaving  to  the  Will  of 
God,  if  it  be  merely  a  strong  will  of  our  own,  it  can  be  only 
a  selfish,  proud,  obstinate  will.  We  need  a  strong  will,  but 
strong  in  righteousness,  and  so  free  from  selfishness,  pride, 
and  obstinacy ;  and  that  we  shall  only  find  in  the  strong  and 
holy  Will  of  God,  in  our  resolute  self-surrender  in  all  things 
to  that  Will. 

In  the  next  place,  the  text  sets  before  us  the  one  true 
ideal  of  spiritual  life.  It  shows  all  of  us  what  we  ought  to 
aim  at  and  strive  after  as  rational,  moral,  and  religious  beings. 
It  shows  us  the  one  worthy  goal  of  life  and  the  one  way  to 
it.  That  is  an  immense  service.  A  man  who  aims  at  nothing 
will  accomplish  nothing ;  a  man  who  aims  at  what  is  impos- 
sible must  be  baffled  and  disappointed ;  a  man  who  strives 
after  what  is  unreasonable  must  prove  himself  a  fool ;  a  man 
who  seeks  what  is  vicious  and  degrading  must  work  out  his 
own  condemnation  and  disgrace.  A  man's  actual  life  always 
corresponds  so  far  to  his  ideal  of  life ;  it  is  in  a  measure  high 
or  low,  mean  or  noble,  as  that  is.  The  conduct  may,  indeed, 
fall  very  far  short  of  the  ideal  of  conduct  which  the  mind 
has  had  before  it,  but  it  never  rises  above  it  and  is  never 
wholly  out  of  relation  to  it.  I  know  not  what  fates  and 
fortunes  may  have  been  ordained  for  any  of  you  young  men 
here  present,  but  this  I  know,  that,  whatever  your  outward 
circumstances  may  be,  your  real  lives  will  be  very  much  what 
you  sincerely  wish  them  to  be  and  honestly  strive  to  make  them ; 
and  that  I  consequently  can  give  you  no  better  advice  than 
that  you  should  set  before  yourselves  now,  at  the  most  appro- 
priate age  and  season  for  doing  so,  the  highest  ideal  of  life 
which  you  can  form,  and  cleave  to  it  henceforth  with  all  your 
heart  and  strength  and  soul  and  mind.  But  of  such  an  ideal 
the  fundamental  and  ruling  principle  can  only  be  that  which 
pervades  the  Lord's  Prayer  and  which  finds  clear  and  explicit 


THE    DIVINE    WILL.  119 

expression  in  this  petition  in  particular:  it  must  be  the  prin- 
ciple of  self-sacrifice.  It  cannot  be  that  of  self-gratification  ; 
it  cannot  be  the  living  for  pleasure,  wealth,  influence,  or  fame. 
For  the  rational  and  immortal  soul  to  make  any  of  these  its 
end  is  manifestly  to  degrade  and  debase  itself.  No  one  not 
utterly  unworthy  of  bearing  the  name  of  student,  or  being  a 
member  of  any  of  the  liberal  professions,  can  need  to  be 
reminded  that  the  soul  itself  is  far  greater  than  these  things, 
and  can  never  have  been  meant  to  be  used  as  a  mere  instrument 
for  the  attainment  of  these  things. 

Self-culture  is  a  much  higher  aim  than  self-gratification,  but 
it  is  still  far  below  the  truth,  and  none  need  more  to  be  warned 
of  this  than  those  who  are  occupied  as  most  of  you  are.  It  is 
the  special  temptation  of  persons  who  are  engaged  in  the  pur- 
suit of  learning  and  science  to  believe  that  they  can  attain  the 
end  of  life  by  the  culture  and  discipline  of  their  various  powers 
of  thought  and  feeling.  They  forget  that  the  end  of  life  is 
not  in  thought  or  feeling;  that  the  culture  which  stops  short 
at  thinking  and  feeling  is  superficial  and  incomplete  even  as 
culture ;  that  the  thought  or  feeling  which  a  man  cannot  em- 
body in  action  he  possesses  imperfectly,  and  that  the  thought 
or  feeling  which  he  does  not  embody  in  action  is  no  part  of 
his  essential  self.  Culture,  so  far  as  true,  transforms  itself 
into  character,  and  character  into  conduct.  What  is  ultimate 
in  man  is  a  will,  and  his  chief  end  must  be  in  the  exertion  of 
will,  in  doing — such  doing  as  springs  from  true  thinking  and 
pure  feeling.  Still  more  do  those  who  make  self -culture  an 
end  and  not  a  means  forget  that  there  is  a  self  in  us  which 
ought  not  to  be  cultivated,  but  to  be  got  rid  of,  and  that  that 
self  is  the  very  root  of  our  natural  life,  and  can  by  no  means 
be  cast  out  by  the  mere  discipline  and  training  of  our  natural 
powers.  Mere  self-culture,  culture  in  the  strength  of  self,  and 
for  the  sake  of  self,  leaves  in  us  the  selfish  will  which  mis- 
directs and  abuses  all  the  powers  of  the  mind,  however  trained 
and  refined  they  may  be.  Therefore,  with  Divine  wisdom, 
the  Gospel  enjoins  not  the  self-culture  which  excludes  self- 
sacrifice,  but  the  self-sacrifice  which  includes  all  true  self- 
culture. 

To  die  to  self ;  to  use  our  own  will  merely  for  acquiescence 


120  THE    DIVINE    WILL. 

in  God's  Will ;  to  hold  our  whole  possessions,  time,  and  talents 
as  means  whereby  to  do  His  work  in  the  world ;  to  offer  our 
all  of  existence,  without  reservation  of  one  thought  or  feeling, 
as  a  gift  to  Him — this,  and  this  alone,  if  the  Gospel  be  true, 
is  the  great  duty  and  end  of  life.  This  is  the  ideal  and  law 
for  every  human  being,  and  indeed  for  every  spiritual  being  in 
the  whole  universe  of  God.  The  same  physical  laws  which 
rule  on  earth  are  known  to  prevail  in  the  myriads  of  worlds 
which  people  space,  and  still  more  certain  is  it  that  the  moral 
law  is  universal  in  its  sway.  Of  the  angelic  hosts  the  one 
great  fact  we  are  made  acquainted  with  is  that  "  They  do  His 
commandments,  hearkening  to  the  voice  of  His  word "  ;  and 
it  suffices  to  show  that  there  is  an  essential  community  of 
nature  between  them  and  us,  on  which  may  be  founded  a 
communion  of  interest  and  sympathy,  and  which  explains  why 
they  should  desire  to  look  into  the  mysteries  of  redeeming  love, 
and  why  they  should  rejoice  over  a  sinner  who  repenteth.  The 
ideal  of  life  for  the  highest  angel  and  for  the  lowest  man  is 
essentially  the  same ;  it  is  the  acceptance  of  the  Will  of  God  as 
the  sole  law  of  their  lives ;  it  is  life  not  to  themselves  but  to 
God.  While  thus  comprehensive,  while  thus  inclusive  of  all 
moral  beings,  whether  angels  or  men,  it  is  an  ideal  which  is  at 
the  same  time  special  and  even  individual,  demanding  of  each 
one  of  us  that  we  act  in  that  particular  way  in  which  our 
action  will  be  most  efficient  for  good,  for  the  glory  of  God. 
God  has  given  us  very  different  abilities  and  aptitudes,  and  in 
all  the  resulting  inequalities  and  diversities  He  has  a  meaning 
and  a  purpose.  He  has  a  plan  for  each  one  of  us  which  it  is 
our  duty  to  discover ;  a  work  for  each  one  of  us  which  we  are 
bound  to  do.  It  will  be  well  for  us  if  we  accept  His  will 
towards  us  by  adopting  His  plan  and  doing  His  work ;  for  His 
will  towards  us  is  full  of  grace  and  love ;  and  glory,  honour, 
and  immortality  lie  before  those  who  follow  its  guidance. 

It  is  enough  merely  to  remind  you,  further,  that  the  petition 
pledges  us  to  try  to  spread  the  knowledge  and  love  of  the  Will 
of  God.  If  we  believe  that  the  Will  of  God  is  the  only  true 
and  good  law  for  men ;  that  obedience  to  it  is  life,  that  dis- 
obedience to  it  is  death ;  that  the  whole  conduct  of  men  to 
one  another  ought  to  be  regulated  by  it ;  that  it  forbids  every- 


THE    DIVINE    WILL.  121 

thing  unjust  and  cruel,  and  enjoins  everything  good,  every- 
thing calculated  to  diffuse  happiness  on  earth,  and  to  lead  to 
happiness  in  heaven ;  we  must  feel  bound  by  every  moral 
motive  to  let  our  brethren  of  mankind  know  it,  and  to  com- 
mend it  to  their  approval  and  obedience ;  and  this  petition 
implying  or  embodying  all  this  pledges  us  to  live  such  lives  as 
will  most  honour  God's  Will,  and  let  the  power  of  it  be  best 
seen,  and  to  make  all  efforts  we  can  that  those  to  whom  our 
influence  reaches  should  be  induced  to  submit  to  it. 

Our  text  further  tells  us,  I  remark  in  conclusion,  how  we 
ought  to  do  God's  Will.  It  tells  us  His  Will  should  be  done  on 
earth  as  it  is  done  in  heaven.  The  perfect  doing  of  it  is  what 
we  ought  to  aim  at :  ambition  so  often  appears  in  selfish  and 
unworthy  forms  that  we  are  apt  to  overlook  that  there  is  a 
noble  and  unselfish  ambition  which  lies  at  the  root  of  all 
excellence  in  life  and  work,  and  which,  so  far  from  being  allied 
to  pride,  is  inseparable  from  humility.  The  ambition  which 
seeks  merely  to  outstrip  others  or  to  gain  their  applause,  and 
to  carry  off  outward  honours  and  distinctions,  is  a  principle 
which  one  may  not  condemn,  perhaps,  in  young  and  immature 
minds ;  but  which  is  contemptible  in  a  grown  man  ;  and  which 
most  assuredly  is  never  appealed  to  in  the  school  of  Christ. 
But  the  ambition  which  has  no  reference  to  others,  which  is 
entirely  distinct  from  emulation  and  the  desire  of  superiority, 
which  has  its  source  solely  in  a  keen  susceptibility  to  our  own 
imperfections,  and  consists  exclusively  of  aspiration  after  per- 
fection in  life  and  work,  has  not  only  been  the  source  of  all 
that  is  best  and  most  enduring  in  art  and  literature,  science 
and  philosophy,  but  has  been  the  inspiring  principle  of  all  the 
achievements  of  piety  and  virtue,  of  all  spiritual  grandeur,  and 
of  all  Christian  heroism  and  devotion. 

If  the  spirit  of  this  petition,  "  Thy  Will  be  done  on  earth  as 
it  is  in  heaven,"  be  in  any  man,  he  will  never  cease  striving  to 
become  a  better  man,  and  to  do  his  work  better,  so  long  as  he 
can  find  a  fault  or  defect  either  in  himself  or  in  his  work.  He 
will  not  compare  himself  with  other  men  and  be  satisfied  if  he 
is  not  obeying  God's  Will  worse  than  they  are  doing.  He  will 
look  above  earth,  as  we  are  in  this  petition  taught  to  do,  and 
will  see  in  heaven  the  true  standard  of  his  obedience. 


122  THE    DIVINE    WILL. 

As  angels  do  the  Father's  Will  in  heaven,  so  should  we  do  it 
on  earth.  And  how  do  they  do  it  ?  "  They  excel  in  strength," 
says  the  Psalmist,  "and  obey  His  commandments."  They  put 
out  their  whole  strength  on  that — "  doing  His  commandments." 
They  have  no  other  use  for  their  strength,  and  make  no  other 
use  of  it.  All  their  natural  power,  all  their  affection,  and  all 
their  intelligence  are  fully  occupied  with  that.  Such  is  the 
obedience  we  are  to  aspire  after.  God  give  us  grace  to  do  so, 
for  if  we  do  and  faint  not  we  shall  gradually  approach  it, 
and  at  length  attain  unto  it,  even  at  that  time  when  we  are 
admitted  into  the  society  of  the  angels  who  are  in  heaven. 
And  now  may  God  bless  unto  us  His  word,  and  work  in  us  His 
holy  Will.     Amen. 


X. 

ONE  THING  NEEDFUL,  AND  ONE  THING 
TO  BE  DONE.i 

"  But  one  thing  is  needful." — Luke  x.  42. 
"This  one  thing  I  do." — Philippians  iii.  13. 

I  BRING  the  words  of  our  Lord  in  the  first  of  these  verses 
and  those  of  St  Paul  in  the  second  of  these  verses  into 
connection,  because  "the  one  thing"  which  is  spoken  of  both 
by  the  Master  and  His  servant  is  the  same  thing,  only  looked 
at  in  two  slightly  different  aspects,  and  because  it  is  the  thing 
concerning  which  I  wish  to  speak  to  you,  with  all  sincerity  and 
earnestness,  at  this  time. 

In  both  cases  by  the  "  one  thing  "  is  meant  the  blessed  and 
holy  life  made  accessible  to  us  through  Christ  and  in  Christ; 
but  in  the  former  case  that  life  is  regarded  as  the  alone  adequate 
satisfaction  of  all  desire,  and  in  the  latter  as  the  one  great  end 
of  all  exertion.  The  Avords,  "But  one  thing  is  needful,"  are 
among  the  words  of  our  Lord  in  His  rebuke  of  Martha.  She 
was  letting  the  many  little  things  which  she  thought  needful 
for  His  proper  entertainment  fret  her  temper,  make  her  im- 
patient with  her  sister,  and  deprive  herself  of  the  spiritual 
benefit  which  His  visit  gave  her  such  an  opportunity  of  receiv- 
ing, and  so  when  her  own  complaint  against  Mary  gave  Him  the 
most  fitting  occasion,  gently  and  faithfully  the  Great  Teacher 
reminded  her  that  the  many  things  which  were  troubling  her 
were  not  worth  being  troubled  about,  while  there  was  one  thing 
worth  all  her  care,  the  very  one  which  she  was  losing  sight  of  in 
the  many,  the  one  good  thing  which  would  never  be  taken  away. 

The  words,  "This  one  thing  I  do,"  occur  in  an  argument 
of  St  Paul  warning  the  Philippians  to  beware  of  those  false 
teachers  who  tempted  them  to  look  for  salvation  from  circum- 
cision and  the  law,  and  those  evil  workers  who  went  by  Christ's 

^  Preached  in  St  Leonard's  Church,  St  Andrews. 
123 


124  ONE    THING   NEEDFUL. 

name  and  yet  felt  no  shame  in  making  a  God  of  their  belly  and 
minding  earthly  things.  He  says  he  himself  had  had  more 
reason  than  any  of  these  to  trust  for  acceptance  with  God,  as 
he  had  been  born  a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews,  been  zealous  for 
the  old  law,  and  blameless  as  touching  its  righteousness ;  yet 
now  he  counted  these  things  but  loss,  great  gain  although  they 
had  once  seemed  to  him,  and  willingly  renounced  them,  and 
was  glad  to  forget  all  that  lay  behind,  for  there  was  one  thing 
before  him  in  comparison  with  which  all  things  else  were 
worthless  and  vile.  That  one  thing  was  the  excellency  of  the 
knowledge  of  Christ,  the  prize  of  the  high  calling  of  God  in 
Christ.  He  confessed  himself  unworthy  of  it  and  counted 
himself  not  yet  to  have  apprehended  it,  but  to  apprehend  and 
gain  it  was  the  one  thing  he  felt  that  was  worth  doing,  the  one 
thing  he  wished  or  tried  to  do.  That  his  resolution  may  be 
yours  and  mine, — that  feeling  like  him  "  but  one  thing  needful," 
we  may  like  him  concentrate  our  energies  on  the  doing  of  that 
"one  thing," — may  God  grant. 

There  is,  then,  one  thing  needed,  and  there  is  one  thing  to 
be  done.  There  is  one  thing  to  be  done  because  there  is  one 
thing  needed.  Those  who  do  not  feel  the  need  of  the  one 
thing  will  never  do  that  one  thing.  What  they  feel  no  want 
of  they  will  not  desire,  and  what  they  do  not  desire  they  will 
not  strive  and  labour  to  attain.  Now,  there  are  some  who  do 
not  at  all  feel  that  there  is  one  thing  needed,  and,  consequently, 
one  thing  to  be  done;  some  who  have  no  one  great  desire  and 
no  one  fixed  aim  in  life  ;  some  so  distracted  by  the  many  pas- 
sions of  their  own  hearts,  and  so  bewildered  among  the  many 
objects  which  appeal  to  these  passions,  as  not  to  feel  that  their 
natures  were  made  to  be  ruled  and  their  lives  meant  to  be  per- 
vaded by  one  supreme  central  and  guiding  principle.  It  is 
especially  the  danger  and  fault  of  youth  to  be  drawn  easily  in 
the  most  diverse  directions,  to  yield  to  the  most  inconsistent 
impulses,  to  read  and  learn,  talk  and  enjoy,  work  and  play, 
without  any  due  sense  of  how  the  many  things  done  are  related 
to  one  another  and  to  any  worthy  end  beyond  themselves,  and 
beyond  the  hour  in  which  they  are  performed.  In  a  word,  their 
special  danger  and  fault  is  to  live  without  plan  and  purpose. 
Very  probably  there  are  several  here  whose  great  error  this  is. 


ONE   THING   NEEDFUL.  125 

Yet  there  can  be  no  need  to  dwell  either  on  the  folly  or  sin  of 
it.  For  of  this  I  am  sure,  that  if  they  will  but  go  a  little  way 
beyond  their  merely  surface  feelings,  a  little  way  down  into 
the  secret  places  of  their  hearts,  they  will  find  that  they  are 
themselves  conscious  both  of  the  folly  and  of  the  sin  of  it;  that 
although  they  may  be  feeling  whatever  pleasantness  there  is  in 
taking  life  and  its  responsibilities  as  lightly  as  they  do  just 
now,  they  yet  shrink  from  the  thought  of  their  being  found 
even  at  middle  age  still  drifting  thus,  without  a  will  of  their 
own,  they  know  not  where,  at  the  mercy  of  every  wind  and 
wave,  and  can  even  now  readily  believe  that  in  a  few  short 
years  they  may  be  regretting  all  time  thus  spent  as  a  precious 
season  wasted,  which  they  would  gladly  recall  but  cannot. 

All  but  the  most  frivolous  even  of  worldly  men  soon  come 
to  learn  from  experience  that  human  nature  without  a  ruling 
passion  is  weak  and  contemptible,  and  that  human  life  if 
aimless  can  result  only  in  sorrow  and  shame ;  while  to  have  the 
will  and  the  power  to  concentrate  the  energies  on  the  seeking 
and  doing  of  one  thing  is  to  have  the  secret  of  all  success — 
is  the  one  condition  on  which  man  can  do  anything  great. 
Indeed  this  truth  is  one  which  worldly  men  in  general  see 
more  clearly  and  act  on  more  faithfully  than  Christians.  It  is 
a  main  respect  in  which  the  children  of  the  world  are  wiser  in 
their  generation  than  the  children  of  light  that  they  see  more 
distinctly  the  goal  they  would  be  at,  turn  their  eyes  less  away 
from  it,  and  press  more  directly  and  perseveringly  towards  it, 
than  the  latter  do  as  regards  the  far  nobler  one  set  before 
them.  It  is  not,  I  think,  as  a  rule,  in  their  not  feeling  that 
one  thing  is  needful  and  that  one  thing  is  to  be  done  that  men 
of  the  world,  at  least  after  a  certain  age,  err  and  are  to  blame, 
but  that  they  propose  to  themselves  as  the  chief  end  of  their 
lives  something  altogether  unworthy  of  being  the  chief  end  of 
a  human  soul,  something  which  is  not  the  good  part  and  will 
assuredly  be  taken  away,  something  infinitely  short  of  the 
prize  of  that  high  calling  which  God  has  in  Christ  for  every 
human  soul. 

Thus  there  is  a  great  multitude,  the  common  multitude, 
who  keep  constantly  asking, "  What  shall  we  eat,  and  what  shall 
we  drink,  and  wherewithal  shall  we  be  clothed  ?  "  a  great  multi- 


126  ONE   THING   NEEDFUL. 

tude  whose  whole  affections  and  energies  are  confined  to  the 
procuring  of  a  maintenance,  to  the  bettering  of  their  outward 
condition,  to  the  acquisition  of  wealth  or  position  or  influence. 
They  throw  themselves  not  only  energetically — that  might  be 
quite  right — but,  what  can  never  be  right,  entirely  into  the 
pursuit  of  these  things,  seeking  them  with  an  exclusive  desire 
and  devotion,  with  the  whole  heart  and  soul,  to  the  forgetful- 
ness,  neglect,  and  rejection  of  things  far  better  and  far  more 
needful.  Nothing  can  be  more  common  than  this,  and  yet 
nothing  can  be  more  foolish.  It  is  labour  in  vain,  the  spending 
of  the  life  and  strength  of  the  soul  for  the  temporary  support 
and  advantage  of  the  body.  A  spiritual  nature  cannot  be 
satisfied  with  material  good.  The  needs  and  cravings  of  a 
being  meant  for  a  heavenly  and  eternal  existence  cannot  be 
supplied  out  of  earthly  and  perishing  sources.  It  is  only  when 
the  soul  is  in  sorest  want  and  deepest  degradation,  only  when 
far  away  from  its  proper  home,  its  father's  house,  it  is  starving 
in  a  foreign  land  where  a  great  famine  prevails,  that  it  tries  to 
fill  itself  with  such  swine's  husks  as  these.  And  it  tries,  of 
course,  only  to  fail ;  for  although  the  gratifications  of  the  lower 
appetites  may  dull  the  sense,  may  deaden  for  a  time  the  gnaw- 
ing pain  of  spiritual  hunger,  they  can  never  possibly  truly 
satisfy  the  soul.  There  is  nothing  in  them  to  respond  to  what  is 
highest  and  best  in  us ;  to  faith  and  hope,  adoration  and  love, 
the  faculties  in  the  exercise  of  which  we  truly  live. 

I  willingly  believe,  however,  that  those  of  my  hearers  whom 
I  wish  to  have  especially  in  my  thoughts  at  present, — those 
who  are  still,  as  it  were,  on  the  threshold  of  life, — are  just 
those  who  are  least  likely  to  belong  to  this  multitude,  and  most 
likely  to  feel  the  vanity  and  meanness  of  su^ch  a  life  as  it  leads. 
All  generous  young  minds  must.  The  culture,  the  aspirations, 
the  affections  of  their  condition  and  age  make  it  impossible  for 
them  not  to  recognise  at  a  glance  that  the  life  of  the  mere 
worldling  is  lamentably  narrow  and  low,  and  can  never  be  what 
God  designed  man  for.  They  are  conscious  of  having  in  them- 
selves a  great  wealth  of  faculties  and  feelings  for  which  there 
would  be  no  place  or  use  in  a  life  of  the  kind.  And  yet  how 
often  do  such  as  they  settle  down  into  just  such  a  life  ?  The 
prodigal  in  the  jDarable  when  he  left  his  Father's  house,  rich 


ONE   THING   NEEDFUL.  127 

with  the  goods  which  his  Father  had  given  him,  never  dreamt, 
you  may  be  sure,  that  he  would  come  to  feed  swine,  and  try  to 
appease  his  hunger  with  swine's  food ;  and  yet  he  came  to  it, 
gradually  and  naturally,  in  consequence  of  his  turning  his  back 
on  his  Father's  house,  and  throwing  off  his  Father's  guidance, 
and  taking  his  own  way.  Like  that  prodigal,  many  a  youth 
who  started  rich  in  high  thoughts  and  generous  feelings, 
through  making  the  fatal  mistake  of  trying  to  live  away  from 
God  has  gradually  wasted  them  all,  has  gradually  grown  poorer 
in  mind  and  heart,  and  at  last  become  among  the  most  worldly 
of  worldlings.  Therefore,  0  young  men,  if  you  would  not 
become  what  you  now  honestly  and  justly  despise ;  if  you 
would  gladly  on  the  contrary  leave  the  world  a  little  less 
worldly  than  you  have  found  it,  beware  of  that  first  and  most 
fatally  wrong  step  of  turning  away  from  God,  instead  of  turning 
to  Him,  that  He  may  preserve  and  increase  in  you  every  good 
and  generous  feeling,  and  may  not  leave  you  to  your  own  wills, 
to  waste  them  and  work  out  your  own  ruin. 

There  are  some,  although  by  no  means  so  many,  who  seek  to 
find  satisfaction  for  all  their  wishes,  and  work  for  all  their 
energies  in  an  intellectual  life,  in  the  exercise  of  thought,  in 
the  search  after  truth,  and  yet  while  rising  thus  high  in  desire 
and  aim  do  not  yield  themselves  to  the  love  and  obedience  of  the 
God  of  truth.  These,  too,  mistake  as  to  the  one  thing  needful, 
and  fail  to  press  towards  the  one  true  prize  of  life.  Mere  truth 
— truth  apprehended,  not  as  the  thought  and  affection  and  will 
of  God,  but  as  in  itself — will  not  satisfy  the  human  heart. 
Suppose  a  man  knew  not  only  all  that  science  has  at  present  to 
tell,  but  all  that  it  will  ever  be  able  to  tell  about  the  world 
of  matter  and  the  mind  of  man,  would  it  be  reasonable  to 
expect  that  fully  to  satisfy  him  ?  I  think  not.  Were  all  that 
is  to  be  known  about  the  material  universe  actually  known,  the 
man  who  knew  it  would  simply  have  within  himself  the  true 
reflection  of  what  was  existing  without  him — on  his  spirit  which 
thinks  there  would  simply  be  a  correct  picture  of  that  which 
does  not  think.  Now,  I  cannot  believe  that  the  soul,  which 
would  not  be  satisfied  with  the  very  world  itself  could  it  have 
it,  will  ever  be  satisfied  with  that  pale  reflection  of  it  which 
constitutes  science,  and  which   can    only  be  to  the  reality  as 


128  ONE    THING   NEEDFUL. 

moonlight  is  to  sunlight.  I  cannot  believe  that  the  soul,  which 
is  itself  so  superior  every  way  to  the  material  world,  can  have 
for  its  highest  end,  merely  to  serve  as  a  mirror  to  it,  and  to 
show  forth,  not  the  likeness  and  glory  of  God,  but  the  image  or 
reflection  of  what  is  without  life,  without  reason,  and  without 
love.  And  were  all  that  is  to  be  known  about  the  mind  of 
man  actually  known,  the  soul  which  knew  it  would,  after  all, 
only  have  a  knowledge  of  itself,  and  surely  only  a  fool  would 
have  it  rest  in  complacent  contemplation,  or  bow  down  in 
adoration  of  that.  Indeed,  a  soul  which  really  knew  itself, 
which  clearly  saw  itself  as  it  is  in  itself,  away  from  the  grace 
and  mercy  of  God,  could  do  neither,  but  would  be  over- 
whelmed by  its  knowledge  with  shame  and  terror. 

The  wisdom  of  the  world  now,  as  in  the  days  of  St  Paul,  is 
foolishness  with  God,  and  seen  to  be  foolishness  when  reason 
looks  at  it  in  the  true  light,  which  is  that  which  comes  from 
God;  and  there  is  no  part  of  the  wisdom  of  the  present  day 
more  dangerously  foolish  than  that  which  sets  forth  science, 
culture,  truth,  as  all-sufficient  ends  of  life.  Apart  from  the 
love  and  service  of  God  these  may  lead  the  soul  into  a  land 
as  waste  and  famishing  as  the  pursuit  of  what  only  concerns 
the  body.  They  may  even  lead  it  into  a  still  more  howl- 
ing and  hungry  wilderness.  There  is  on  earth  a  greater 
misfortune  than  to  crave  for  bread  and  not  to  have  it,  and 
a  sadness  more  complete  than  that  of  bereavement,  sick- 
ness, poverty,  even  pushed  to  their  extremest  limits.  There 
is  the  bitterness  of  a  soul  which  has  studied,  and  searched, 
and  speculated;  which  has  pursued  truth  in  many  directions 
with  eager  and  anxious  heart ;  and  yet,  because  it  sought  it 
apart  from  the  light  and  life  which  are  in  God,  has  only  found 
in  all  directions  doubt  and  nothingness.  This  bitterness  may 
you  be  spared,  this  weariness  of  life,  this  disbelief  in  any  good, 
by  letting  God  guide  you  in  the  culture  of  your  minds  and 
the  search  for  truth,  as  aware  that  there  is  no  wise  education 
or  true  knowledge  separate  from  His  operation  and  blessing. 

God  has,  my  friends,  a  better  portion  for  you,  even  the  one 
thing  needful  of  which  Christ  spoke  ;  a  higher  calling  for  you, 
even  that  one  thing  which  the  Apostle  did.  Do  you  ask.  What 
is  it  ?     It  is  to  accept  like  Mary,  Martha's  sister,  the  message 


ONE   THING   NEEDFUL.  129 

of  Christ  as  the  Revealer  of  the  Father's  character  and  will ;  it 
is  to  try  to  realise  it  like  St  Paul  in  a  life  which  flows  from 
the  Spirit  of  Christ  dwelling  in  us,  and  is  devoted  to  the  glory 
of  God.  It  is  to  know,  believe,  and  do  the  gracious  will  of  our 
Heavenly  Father  towards  ourselves  and  towards  our  fellow- 
men.  It  is  to  receive  and  close  with  that  special  ojffer  of 
forgiveness  and  strength  which  Jesus  Christ  brought  from 
heaven,  which  He  sealed  by  the  sacrifice  of  Himself,  and  lives 
to  make  effectual  by  the  gift  of  His  Spirit.  It  is  to  be,  in 
consequence,  not  alien  from  God,  but  in  communion  with  Him, 
both  in  our  secret  thoughts  and  outward  deeds ;  to  be  on  His 
side  in  the  great  conflict  between  truth  and  falsehood,  right 
and  wrong,  in  the  world  ;  to  be  doing  what  in  us  lies  to  make 
Christ  better  known,  more  honoured,  and  more  loved  by  those 
around  us,  because  we  honour  and  love  Him  in  our  own  souls ; 
it  is  by  patient  continuance  in  well-doing,  undismayed  by 
opposition  and  unwearied  by  failure,  to  advance,  each  of  us  in 
his  own  sphere,  that  Kingdom  of  God,  which  is  righteousness 
and  peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost. 

This  is  the  one  thing.  It  is  the  sole  one  thing  which  can 
satisfy  our  every  desire  and  be  the  true  and  adequate  end  of  our 
every  energy.  It  is  so  in  opposition  to  the  many  things  not 
needful  and  not  to  be  done.  It  is  so  as  contrasted  with  these, 
as  excluding  these.  It  was  opposed  by  our  Lord  to  the  many 
things  which  cumbered  Martha.  It  was  opposed,  St  Paul 
felt,  to  all  such  remembrance  of  the  past  as  tended  to  paralyse 
his  Christian  exertions  and  impede  his  Christian  progress; 
and  so,  to  gain  the  aim  on  which  he  was  intent,  he  tells  us, 
he  forgot  the  things  behind, — would  not  so  much  as  think 
of  them.  To  believe  and  obey  the  Gospel,  the  doing  of 
that  is  our  "  one  need,"  because  it  is  so  unspeakably  above 
and  before  every  other  need  in  urgency,  that  any  desire,  any 
action,  which  conflicts  with  it,  with  the  full  and  entire  satis- 
faction of  it,  is  a  desire  which  we  are  to  refuse  to  gratify, 
an  action  which  we  are  to  refuse  to  perform.  It  is  simply 
because  we  do  not  sufficiently  realise  the  position  we  are  in 
as  related  to  God  and  eternity,  and  so  do  not  feel  as  we  ought 
our  need  of  the  Gospel,  that  we  fancy  we  have  need  of  many 
things  besides  the  Gospel. 


130  ONE    THING   NEEDFUL. 

But  the  one  thing  needed  and  the  one  thing  to  be  done  is 
not  only  so  as  excluding  all  that  is  not  needed  and  not  to  be 
done,  the  countless  crowd  of  things  which  we  fancy  good  yet 
are  really  hurtful,  but  as  including  all  that  is  truly  useful, 
all  that  is  in  the  highest  and  best  sense  profitable  for  us  and 
others.  It  excluded  the  many  things  belonging  to  the  much 
preparation  with  which  Martha  mistakingly  cumbered  herself. 
It  would  have  included,  however,  everything  required  for 
such  attention  to  the  bodily  wants  and  entertainment  of  the 
Lord  as  He  Himself  would  have  wished.  It  did  not  more 
certainly  exclude  the  excessive  and  cumbersome  than  it  would 
have  included  whatever  was  reasonable  and  right.  It  made 
St  Paul  forget  and  lay  aside  much,  but  it  also  made  him  use 
every  means  and  strain  his  every  faculty  to  gain  his  end.  It 
does  not  in  the  least  follow  that  because  the  Christian  keeps 
ever  one  end  or  aim  before  him  he  must  be  a  man  of  one  idea, 
of  a  one-sided  mind  or  life.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  just  that 
which  fits  the  Christian  life  to  be  the  "  one  thing  "  for  every 
man ;  that  "  one  thing  "  in  which  the  broadest  minds,  the  most 
generous  hearts,  the  most  energetic  natures  may  find  the 
amplest  scope  for  all  their  thoughts,  affections,  and  activities. 
Nothing  is  either  so  great  or  so  little  as  not  to  be  able  to  be 
included  in  it.  It  admits  of  everything,  it  demands  every- 
thing, which  tends  to  the  perfection  of  our  nature  and  the 
glory  of  God. 

It  includes,  then,  all  that  is  needful,  and  all  that  ought  to 
be  done,  and  excludes  all  that  is  needless  and  which  it  would 
only  harm  us  to  do.  It  is  thus  that  it  is  the  one  thing,  and  it 
is  obvious  that  to  choose  it  must  both  simplify  and  strengthen 
life  immensely.  It  determines  both  what  is  to  be  done  and 
what  is  to  be  left  undone.  By  making  us  men  of  a  single 
purpose  and  aim,  by  fixing  our  desires  on  one  single  thing, 
the  largest,  highest,  most  desirable  and  most  precious  con- 
ceivable, it  does  away  at  once  with  a  vast  amount  of  what 
would  otherwise  be  hopeless  complication  and  confusion,  the 
source  of  bewilderment,  vacillation,  and  weakness.  If  we 
knew  that  any  man  here — and  especially  any  young  man 
here — had  firmly  resolved  that,  through  God's  grace,  come 
what  may,  he  would  do  this  one  thing,  the  will  of  God ;  that, 


ONE   THING   NEEDFUL.  131 

whatever  Ccame  in  conflict  therewith,  be  it  in  himself  or  the 
world,  he  would  oppose  it ;  and  that  whatever  conscience 
enlightened  by  the  Holy  Spirit  told  him  that  will  demanded, 
he  would  at  all  hazards  do;  then  should  we  know  also  that, 
although  his  life  might  prove  no  pleasant  one,  yet  would  it 
be  a  right  manly  life,  one  which  even  those  whom  it  offended 
most  would  be  compelled  to  respect  because  of  its  singleness, 
its  consistency,  its  concentration,  its  simplicity,  its  strength. 
Such  a  man's  life,  whatever  self-denial,  whatever  hardship  it 
may  involve,  the  heart  instinctively  feels  to  be  the  noblest 
thing  on  earth.  And  yet  how  few  live  thus.  How  few  there 
are,  even  of  those  who  profess  the  faith  of  Christ,  who  are 
like  St  Paul  doing  just  that  one  thing  which  makes  human 
nature  grand  and  human  life  noble ;  and  how  many  there 
are  like  Martha  minding  more  the  many  things  which  make 
nature  little  and  life  mean.  It  is  the  best  wish  I  can  have 
for  you  all  that  you  may  resolve  to  be  numbered  among  the 
worthier  few  whom  God  uses  as  His  salt  to  preserve  and  savour 
the  earth  ;  as  lights  to  dispel  the  surrounding  darkness. 

Set  your  hearts  on  the  one  thing  needful,  the  true  chief 
end  of  life,  and  pray  God  to  keep  it  there  morning,  noon, 
and  night.  Make  up  your  minds  not  to  aim  at  many  things, 
or  even  at  two  things,  but  at  one.  Do  not  try  to  solve  the 
hopeless  problem,  How  to  make  the  best  of  both  worlds  ?  but 
be  content  to  lose,  if  God  will,  the  earthly  world  in  order 
to  win  the  heavenly.  You  cannot  serve  two  masters,  you 
cannot  live  with  two  objects,  although  thousands  are  foolishly 
trying  to  do  it.  This  so-called  world  of  earth  is  no  true 
world,  but  only  a  fragment  of  God's  rightful  world.  The  only 
two  worlds  I  know  of  are  the  world  of  light  and  of  life,  and 
the  world  of  darkness  and  of  death — the  kingdom  of  God  and 
the  kingdom  of  Satan — and  to  the  one  you  ought  wholly  to 
belong,  and  to  the  other  you  ought  to  be  wholly  hostile.  To 
live  completely  in  the  one  and  completely  out  of  the  other 
is  just  the  one  thing  needed  and  the  one  thing  to  be  done. 

Strive  and  pray  also  that  your  aim  may  not  only  be  thus 
clear,  but  that  your  resolution  may  be  steady  and  constant. 
It  is  in  that  that  many  fail.  They  see  the  object  but  they 
have  not  the  firmness  to  make  for  it.     They  know  what  the 


132  ONE    THING   NEEDFUL. 

true  end  of  life  is,  and  they  are  too  clear-sighted  to  substitute 
another  end  for  it,  and  yet  they  are  at  the  mercy  of  a  weak 
will,  of  an  infirm  purpose,  so  that  they  cannot  do  the  thing 
that  they  would.  These  are  very  sorrowful  cases.  Combined 
with  true  instincts  and  genuine  impulses  of  good,  with  warm 
affections,  and  it  may  be  holy  desires,  there  is  a  weakness 
and  a  bias  in  the  nature  which  makes  all  else  useless,  and 
causes  the  man  whose  eye  is  set  on  heaven  to  drift  helplessly 
and  hopelessly  into  the  abyss  of  spiritual  ruin.  Strive  and 
pray,  therefore,  for  that  grace  of  a  strong  and  steadfast  will 
without  which  piety  is  impossible  and  hope  a  delusion. 

And  seek  yet  further  a  high  and  holy  zeal  in  the  doing  of 
this  one  great  and  glorious  thing  which  is  to  be  your  life 
work.  Like  St  Paul,  press  towards  the  mark :  like  St  Paul, 
run  with  all  the  eagerness  and  speed  God  is  willing  to  give 
you.  The  goal  which  you  have  before  you  is  the  utmost  and 
highest  degree  of  perfection  you  can  attain.  God  will  give 
you  strength  enough  to  reach  it,  but  not  more  than  enough ; 
time  enough  to  reach  it,  but  none  to  waste.  You  are  as  a 
traveller  the  end  of  whose  journey  is  at  once  so  important 
and  so  remote  that  he  must  allow  nothing  to  divert  him 
from  his  path  or  to  arrest  or  interrupt  him  on  it.  Pain  and 
pleasure,  good  fortune  and  bad,  will,  if  he  is  wise,  be  regarded 
by  him  as  merely  incidents  of  his  journey.  The  wind  blows, 
the  rain  falls,  the  traveller  wraps  his  cloak  around  him  and 
struggles  on ;  the  storm  passes  off,  the  sunshine  breaks  forth 
and  warms  his  numbed  limbs,  he  smiles  with  pleasure  and 
thanks  God  in  his  heart;  but  neither  storm  nor  sunshine 
changes  or  stops  his  course.  Be  ye  such  travellers.  Press 
continuously,  resolutely,  zealously  onwards. 

"  From  strength  to  strength  go  on  ; 

Wrestle,  and  fight,  and  pray  ; 
Tread  all  the  powers  of  darkness  down. 

And  win  the  well-fought  day  ; 
That  having  all  things  done, 

And  all  your  conflicts  past, 
Ye  may  o'ercome  through  Christ  alone, 

And  stand  complete  at  last." 

May  God  add  His  blessing  to  what  has  been  said,  and  to 
His  name  be  glory  for  ever.     Amen. 


XL 
BEHOLDING   THE   WONDERS   OF   GOD'S   LAW.^ 

•'  Open  Thou  mine  eyes,  that  I  may  behold  wondrous  things  out  of  Thy 
law." — Psalm  cxix.  18, 

THE  man  who  uttered  these  words  felt  that  he  was  under 
Divine  law ;  that  clearly  to  see  the  glory  of  that  law  was 
a  matter  of  supreme  importance  to  him ;  and  that  he  could 
only  hope  to  see  it  through  God  being  pleased  to  enable  him 
to  see  it.  He  did  not  feel  that  he  was  without  a  law,  and  so 
he  did  not  pray  for  a  law.  He  felt,  on  the  contrary,  that  he 
was  most  assuredly  under  a  law,  and  a  wonderful  law, — one 
worthy  of  God  and  of  the  most  awful  interest  to  man.  He 
felt  that  he  knew  it  but  badly  and  that  it  deeply  concerned 
him  to  know  it  well ;  that  to  realise  its  sublimity  and  compre- 
hensiveness, its  marvellous  wisdom,  its  perfect  righteousness, 
would  be  light  and  strength  and  life  to  his  soul ;  but  that  so 
to  realise  it  God  must  vouchsafe  to  him  a  sacred  influence, 
a  spiritual  enlightenment.  And  he  had  sufficient  faith  in 
His  God  to  believe  that  He  was  able  and  willing  thus  to 
help  him ; — sufficient  faith  to  believe  that  he  might  without 
presumption,  irreverence,  or  fear,  pray  that  God  would  guide 
him  to  a  correct  acquaintance  with  His  blessed  will.  All 
that  led  him  thus  to  pray,  however,  still  exists  to  lead  us 
to  offer  up  with  as  much  sincerity  and  earnestness  the  same 
prayer,  and  the  design  of  whatever  I  have  to  say  at  this 
time  is  to  help  you  to  realise  your  need  of  thus  praying 
without  ceasing,  or,  in  other  words,  of  living  continually  in 
the  spirit  of  this  prayer,  longing  with  your  whole  hearts  to 
have  the  eyes  of  your  minds  at  all  times  kept  divinely  open, 
to  behold  wondrous  things  out  of  God's  law.  May  God  grant 
that  what  I  have  to  say  fail  not  wholly  of  this  aim. 

1  Preached  in  Lady  Yester's  Church,  Edinburgh,  before  an  audience  consisting 
largely  of  students. 

133 


134        BEHOLDING   THE    WONDERS    OF   GOD's    LAW. 

I  may  begin,  then,  by  remarking  that  there  are  assuredly 
countless  wonders  to  be  beheld  in  God's  law,  had  we  only 
open  eyes  to  behold  them.  There  is  nothing  so  wonderful 
as  God's  law ;  nay,  it  may  justly  be  said  to  include  in  itself 
all  that  is  most  wonderful — all  that  truly  merits  our  admira- 
tion— all  that  will  really  reward  our  curiosity.  For  what  is  it  ? 
The  Psalmist  here  was  not  thinking  merely  of  the  law  given  to 
Moses  or  of  the  words  written  in  any  book,  however  sacred. 
He  was  not  thinking  of  spoken  words  or  written  characters, 
but  of  eternal  realities.  He  was  an  earnest  man,  and  his 
mind  sought  to  be  in  contact  with  truth  itself ;  he  was  a 
pious  man,  and  his  heart  longed  for  nothing  less  or  lower 
than  communion  with  the  living  God.  He  felt  himself  in 
the  Divine  presence,  and  he  felt  that  the  Divine  Law  was 
within  and  around  him.  The  Bible  tells  us  much  about  the 
law  of  God,  but  it  is  only  by  a  figure  of  speech  that  we  call 
it  the  law  of  God  or  even  say  that  it  contains  the  law  of  God. 
In  the  Bible  and  other  books  we  have  the  statements  of  God's 
laws,  but  these  laws  themselves  are  far  too  real  to  be  in  any  book. 

I  read  in  the  Bible,  for  example,  that  God  has  "  set  His 
glory  in  the  heavens,"  but  in  merely  reading  this  I  do  not 
see  that  glory ;  it  is  only  to  be  seen  by  "  considering  the 
heavens,  which  are  the  Avork  of  God's  fingers;  the  moon  and 
the  stars,  which  He  has  ordained."  This  terrible  law — "the 
wages  of  sin  is  death  " — has  been  published  in  the  Bible  but 
it  does  not  exist  and  work  in  the  Bible;  it  exists  and  works 
in  the  lives  of  sinful  beings  like  you  and__^me,  and  if  we  do 
not  see  it  in  ourselves  we  shall  never  see  it  at  all,  although 
we  read  a  thousand  times  the  words  which  announce  it.  So 
with  its  gracious  counterpart, — "  the  ''gift  of  God  is  eternal 
life  through  Jesus  Christ."  These  blessed  words  point  us  to 
the  most  consoling  law  in  all  the  universe,  but  they  point  us 
away  from  themselves,  and  only  by  our  souls  coming  into  com- 
munion with  a  living  God  through  a  living  Saviour  can  they 
behold  the  wonders  of  mercy  and  truth  which  are  in  that  law. 

No  law  of  God,  natural  or  spiritual,  can  be  shut  up  in  a 
book.  The  law  of  God  is  what  keeps  the  stars  in  their 
courses,  what  regulates  the  movements  of  the  seas  and  the 
revolutions  of  the  earth,  what^  develops  the  plant  and  orga- 


BEHOLDING   THE    WONDERS    OF    GOD's    LAW.         135 

nises  the  animal,  works  in  our  instincts  and  guides  our 
reasons,  marks  out  the  path  of  humanity  and  determines 
the  rise  and  fall,  the  weal  and  woe,  of  nations,  and  measures 
out  to  virtue  and  vice  their  due  rewards  in  time  and  eternity. 
It  is  not  truly  separable  from  God  Himself,  but  is  the  whole 
of  the  modes  in  which  He  manifests  His  power,  and  wisdom, 
and  goodness  in  the  universe, — the  whole  of  the  ways  in  which 
He  operates  through  matter  and  spirit,  in  creation,  providence, 
and  redemption,  as  Father  and  King  and  Judge.  Hence  it 
is  that  I  say  it  is  not  only  most  wonderful  but  includes  in 
itself  all  that  is  wonderful.  The  wonders  of  physical  nature, 
of  the  human  soul  and  human  history,  and  of  redeeming  love 
and  grace,  are  all  wonders  of  that  law  of  God  which  the 
Psalmist  longed  and  prayed  to  behold, — that  law  which  ruleth 
alike  in  what  is  least  and  greatest, — to  which  all  things  in 
heaven  and  earth  do  homage, — the  seat  of  which  is  the  bosom 
of  the  Eternal, — the  voice  of  which  is  the  harmony  of  the 
universe.  There  is  no  science  cultivated  among  us  which 
can  have  anything  else  for  its  highest  aim  than  simply  to 
discover  and  exhibit  some  part  of  the  Divine  Law,  The  end 
of  every  kind  of  study  worthy  of  our  engaging  in  is,  directly 
or  indirectly,  to  extend  our  knowledge  of  laws,  which  we 
distinguish  from  one  another  by  calling  laws  of  astronomy 
or  chemistry,  laws  of  language  or  history,  physical,  moral,  or 
spiritual  laws,  but  which  all  agree  in  being  laws  of  God,  the 
operations  of  His  will,  the  expressions  of  His  character,  the 
rules  which  He  has  implanted  in  His  creatures  and  assigned 
to  them  as  the  conditions  and  limits  of  their  workings. 

We  are  apt,  however,  not  to  feel  thus,  and  our  reasons  for 
seeking  knowledge  are  apt  to  be  not  thus  pious  and  elevated, 
but  selfish  and  mean,  and  then  knowledge  is  degraded,  and 
the  life  occupied  in  acquiring  it  loses  all  dignity  and  worth. 
And  this  leads  me  to  what  I  wish  to  remark  on  next,  viz. 
that  men  are  prone  to  separate  in  their  thoughts  what  are 
inseparable  in  fact,  God  from  His  law,  and  to  feel  as  if  He 
had  no  connection  with  the  law  and  the  law  had  no  connec- 
tion with  Him.  And  the  forms  of  this  error  are  two,  for  some 
lose  sight  of  God  while  studying  the  wonders  of  the  law, 
and  others  overlook  or  despise  the  wonders  of  the  law  while 


136         BEHOLDING   THE    WONDERS    OF   GOD's    LAW. 

anxious  to  behold  God.  Both  of  these  are  great  dangers. 
The  ocean  of  life,  perhaps,  contains  none  greater.  On  both 
many  noble  and  hopeful  minds  have  been  wrecked.  And  in 
no  age,  probably,  have  so  many  been  thus  lost  as  in  our  own. 
In  order  to  avoid  them  men  had  never  more  urgent  need  than 
now  to  pray — "Open  Thou  mine  eyes," — and  to  watch  as  well 
as  pray. 

There  are  some,  then,  who  lose  sight  of  God  while  beholding 
the  wonders  of  the  law.  There  are  some — alas,  in  our  days 
there  are  many — the  chief  occupation  of  whose  life  is  to 
discover  and  declare  what  are  the  laws  of  the  world,  and  yet 
who  do  not  feel,  nay,  who  deny,  that  these  laws  are  God's 
laws,  and  maintain  that  they  can  find  no  reason  for  believing 
in  the  existence  or  working  of  God.  One  of  the  greatest 
astronomers  who  ever  lived  pronounced  in  the  name  of  his 
science  the  belief  in  God  a  useless  hypothesis.  A  thinker 
who  has  exerted  an  extraordinary  influence  on  recent  opinion 
affirmed  that  the  heavens  declare  no  other  glory  than  that 
of  Laplace  and  Newton.  No  week  passes  but  we  may  read 
in  newspaper  or  magazine,  pamphlet  or  book,  assertions  or 
reasonings  of  men,  whose  scientific  eminence  is  undoubted, 
to  the  effect  that  matter  and  force  alone  can  account  for 
whatever  of  law  and  order  is  to  be  seen  in  the  physical  world, 
and  that  there  is  nowhere  to  be  seen  in  it  any  evidence  of 
a  God.  And  this  blindness  to  the  presence  of  God  on  the 
part  of  those  whose  minds  are  most  occupied  with  the  study 
of  His  laws  is  in  no  way  confined  to  those  who  are  chiefly 
interested  in  the  material  universe.  In  proportion  to  the 
whole  number  engaged  in  the  study  of  mind,  there  are, 
perhaps,  as  many  who  think  there  is  no  occasion  to  refer  the 
laws  of  our  intellects  to  the  workings  of  an  eternal  Eeason, 
the  laws  of  our  affections  to  the  feelings  of  a  Heavenly  Father. 
It  is  not  otherwise  in  regard  to  moral  laws.  Many  make  them 
the  subjects  of  elaborate  inquiry  and  discussion,  who  find  in 
them  no  traces  of  having  their  source  in  the  bosom  of  God. 
Keligion  itself  is  studied  in  our  days  with  a  comprehensive- 
ness previously  unknown,  its  various  phases  from  the  rudest 
fetichism  of  savage  tribes  to  the  highest  forms  of  Chris- 
tianity are  laboriously  compared  and  contrasted,  analysed  and 


BEHOLDING   THE    WONDERS    OF    GOD'S    LAW.         137 

connected,  by  men  who  see  in  it  merely  a  series  of  creations 
of  the  human  mind,  no  gradual  unveiling  of  the  Godhead. 

What  are  we  to  think  of  all  this  ?  Doubtless  it  might  well 
raise  many  thoughts,  but  scarcely  one,  I  think,  more  certainly 
true  or  practically  important  than  that  our  intellectual  percep- 
tion of  law  is  one  thing  and  our  spiritual  perception  of  God  in 
law  is  a  very  different  thing.  To  see  law  itself  we  need  only  a 
clear  and  disciplined  understanding.  To  see  God  in  law  we 
need  spiritual  discernment.  The  eye  sees  only  what  it  brings 
with  it  the  power  of  seeing.  And  neither  mere  bodily  vision 
nor  mere  intellectual  vision  will  enable  us  to  behold  spiritual 
reality.  Tlie  things  of  the  spirit  must  be  spiritually  discerned. 
When  on  a  serene  night  millions  of  stars  sparkle  in  the  depths 
of  the  sky,  any  man  who  has  bodily  eyes,  although  he  may 
have  no  talent  and  no  culture,  has  only  to  raise  them  upwards 
to  embrace  at  a  glance  all  the  splendours  of  the  firmament,  and 
thereby  to  receive  into  his  soul,  at  least  in  some  measure,  the 
impressions  which  so  sublime  a  spectacle  is  fitted  to  produce. 
But  there  may  stand  beside  him  one  whose  intellectual  ability 
is  far  greater,  and  who  has  improved  that  ability  to  the  utmost 
by  diligent  and  carefully  directed  exercise,  yet  if  Providence 
have  denied  to  him  the  blessing  of  sight,  in  vain  for  him  will 
there  be  all  that  magnificence.  There  is  another  sky,  and  one 
far  grander  than  the  azure  vault  which  is  stretched  over  our 
heads,  and  this  mystic  sky  is  filled  with  the  stars  of  Divine 
truth,  the  wonders  of  creative  power,  the  mysteries  of  infinite 
wisdom,  the  bounties  of  Divine  beneficence,  the  beauties  of 
absolute  holiness,  the  marvels  of  redeeming  love,  the  riches  of 
the  Godhead,  the  glories  of  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit,  shining  far 
more  bright  and  pure  than  the  sun  at  noonday.  And  yet  to 
great  men,  to  the  wise  of  this  world,  to  the  most  scholarly 
and  the  most  scientific  of  men,  they  may  be  quite  invisible, 
although  they  are  lighting  up  with  their  divine  radiance  the 
path  of  the  simple  peasant  and  causing  his  heart  to  leap  and 
sing  with  joy  as  he  beholds  them. 

Let  no  one  of  us  think,  then,  that  by  mere  force  of  study, 
by  the  mere  unaided  exertion  of  the  understanding,  he  may 
count  with  confidence  on  coming  at  length  to  see  all  that  is 
to  be  seen  of  God  in  the  laws  of  the  universe.     A  man  might 


138        BEHOLDING   THE    WONDERS    OF    GOd's    LAW. 

know  all  that  is  to  be  known  of  the  laws  of  matter,  mind,  and 
history,  and  strain  to  exhaustion  the  intellectual  powers  by 
which  he  had  acquired  this  knowledge  in  order  to  derive  from 
it  a  certainty  of  God's  presence,  power,  wisdom,  and  love,  and 
yet  utterly  fail.  There  must  be  a  certain  illumination,  a  certain 
opening  of  the  spiritual  eye,  which  can  only  come  from  God 
Himself,  before  we  can  have  any  true  view  of  God.  Without 
this  no  sacredness  in  His  laws  themselves  will  suffice  to  cause 
us  to  see  God  in  tbem. 

But  to  forget  God  while  we  are  occupied  with  His  law  is  not 
our  only  danger.  There  is  another  scarcely  less  serious.  It  is 
to  treat  His  law  as  not  worth  looking  at  while  we  pretend  to 
desire  to  behold  Himself.  And  this  is  what  many  people  do. 
They  are  very  ready  to  cry  out  about  the  atheism  and  impiety 
of  the  scientific  men  who  express  such  sentiments  as  I  have 
been  referring  to,  and  very  emphatically  profess  their  own  faith 
that  the  world  is  the  work  of  God  and  its  laws  but  His  modes 
of  action,  yet  show  the  profoundest  indifference  as  to  what 
its  character  and  laws  are.  Now,  I  cannot  see  that  these 
persons  are  much  better  than  those  whom  they  blame.  It  is 
no  doubt  most  lamentable  that  any  man  should  be  so  far  left 
to  himself  as  to  affirm  that  the  heavens  declare  no  other  glory 
than  that  of  Newton  and  Laplace,  but  is  it  much  more  lament- 
able than  that  men  who  profess  to  believe  that  "the  heavens 
declare  the  glory  of  God,"  and  who  live  in  an  age  when  any 
man  who  can  read  may  acquire  in  two  or  three  hours  a  know- 
ledge of  the  wonders  of  God's  law  and  glory  in  the  heavens 
such  as  the  Psalmist  had  no  conception  of,  should  refuse 
to  take  even  the  slight  trouble  necessary?  The  atheistical 
astronomer  at  least  realises  that  the  law,  so  far  as  it  comes 
within  the  range  of  his  science,  is  very  wonderful  and  tries 
to  let  his  fellow-men  know  bow  wonderful  it  is,  and  thus,  even 
while  not  acknowledging  it  to  be  God's  law,  unconsciously  and 
unwillingly  glorifies  God  by  his  admiration  of  it ;  but  he  who, 
knowing  it  to  be  divine,  turns  from  its  wonders  with  indiffer- 
ence, thereby  dishonours  Him  whom  he  professes  to  reverence. 
If  a  little  less  blind  than  the  atheist,  he  is  much  more  in- 
consistent. 

If  we  really  believed  all  the  laws  of  the  universe  to  be  the 


BEHOLDING   THE    WONDERS    OF    GOd's    LAW.         139 

expressions  of  God's  character,  the  ways  in  which  His  will 
works,  we  should  welcome  all  discoveries  regarding  them,  all 
light,  from  whatever  quarter  coming,  concerning  any  one  of 
them.  We  should  feel  that  every  new  truth  we  can  learn  must 
necessarily  be  a  means  of  increasing  our  knowledge  of  God. 
But  I  need  scarcely  say  that  a  great  many  professing  believers 
have  no  such  feeling,  no  such  faith,  and  that  it  is  just  the  want 
of  this  faith  in  those  who  ought  to  have  it  which  has  done  more 
harm  to  the  cause  of  religion  among  intellectual  men  than  all 
other  causes  together.  Scarcely  can  any  new  truth  be  an- 
nounced or  new  theory  raised  in  any  department  of  inquiry  but 
you  find  persons  rushing  forward  to  assail  it  under  the  fear  that 
if  it  be  established  religion  will  be  injured  or  ruined.  Let  us 
cast  utterly  out  of  our  minds  every  fear  of  this  kind.  Nothing 
ever  will  be  established  which  will  do  religion  anything  else 
than  good.  Nothing  ever  will  be  brought  to  light  which  will 
do  God  anything  else  than  honour.  The  more  His  works  and 
ways  are  inquired  into  the  more  wondrous  will  they  appear, 
the  more  glorious  and  good  will  He  be  found  to  be.  It  is  not 
faith  in  God,  but  the  want  of  it,  which  causes  any  man  to  look 
upon  nature  or  science  with  distrust  or  aversion  or  even  with 
indifference.  Faith  is  the  confidence  that  God  is  true,  that  all 
truth  is  from  God,  and  so  that  truth  of  its  very  nature  tends  to 
raise  the  mind  to  God  and  to  help  it  to  form  a  larger  and  juster 
conception  of  His  character  and  ways.  Therefore,  we  shall  do 
well  to  desire  and  pray  for  a  keener  interest,  and  a  more  deeply 
and  directly  religious  interest,  in  all  truth  accessible  to  us,  or, 
in  other  words,  for  eyes  more  open  to  the  wonders  of  God's  law 
in  the  very  widest  sense  of  that  term. 

And  now  it  is  high  time  for  me  to  observe  that  while  all  the 
laws  of  God  should,  as  far  as  possible,  be  objects  of  interest  and 
admiration  to  us,  these  laws  are  not  all  of  the  same  practical 
importance  to  us.  There  are  many  of  them  which  we  must  all 
be  ignorant  of,  and  which  we  may  safely  be  ignorant  of.  There 
are  many  of  them  which  we  might  know  had  we  only  time  to 
make  ourselves  acquainted  with  them,  yet  we  cannot,  consis- 
tently with  duty,  spare  the  time  necessary  to  ascertain  them. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  class  of  laws  of  awful  significance 
to  us,  which  we  must  on  no  account  be  ignorant  of,  and  the 


140        BEHOLDING   THE    WONDERS    OF    GOD's    LAW. 

wonders  of  which  we  must  on  no  plea  excuse  ourselves  from 
striving  to  behold  clearly  and  steadily,  and  in  the  marvellous 
light  which  God  has  been  pleased  to  throw  around  them.  The 
laws  which  regulate  the  movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies  and 
those  which  regulate  chemical  combinations  are  undoubtedly 
full  of  interest  both  in  themselves  and  as  illustrations  of  God's 
power  and  wisdom,  and  if,  without  too  serious  a  sacrifice,  we 
can  learn  what  they  are,  let  us  do  so  even  as  a  religious  exercise 
and  duty ;  still,  after  all,  they  concern  us  little  in  comparison 
with  the  laws  which  God  has  given  us  for  the  regulation  of  our 
own  lives.  The  laws  of  astronomy  are,  of  course,  all-important 
for  the  planets;  the  laws  of  chemistry  are,  of  course,  all- 
important  for  such  things  as  oxygen  and  hydrogen ;  but,  as  we 
are  neither  astronomical  bodies  nor  chemical  elements,  but 
rational,  moral,  and  religious  beings  under  spiritual  laws,  by  con- 
forming to  which  we  shall  glorify  God,  bless  our  fellow-creatures, 
and  secure  for  ourselves  honour  and  immortality,  while  by 
violating  them  we  shall  offend  God,  hurt  our  fellows  both  in 
their  bodies  and  souls,  and  ruin  ourselves  both  for  time  and 
eternity,  manifestly  these  spiritual  laws,  the  laws  of  rational 
and  peaceable,  of  righteous  and  holy,  living,  are  of  infinitely 
greater  moment  to  us.  And  clearly  it  was  mainly  these  laws, 
or  what  he  also  describes  as  the  commandments,  the  statutes, 
and  precepts  of  God,  His  righteous  judgments  and  His  testi- 
monies, that  the  Psalmist  prayed  to  behold ;  and  it  is  mainly 
these  laws  that  every  pious  man  will  pray  to  behold,  feeling,  as 
he  must,  that  if  ignorant  of  them,  if  blind  to  their  wonders,  the 
clearest  beholding  of  the  wonders  of  all  the  other  laws  in  the 
universe  will  not  avail  him,  nay,  will  only  in  the  end  turn  to 
his  condemnation. 

In  reality,  whether  we  see  it  or  not,  there  is  far  more  that  is 
wonderful  in  these  laws  than  in  any  other.  They  are,  for 
example,  the  laws  of  God  in  a  far  higher  sense  than  other  laws. 
The  laws  of  the  physical  world  might  have  been  quite  different 
from  what  they  are.  God  made  them  to  be  what  they  are  by 
making  the  physical  world  itself  what  it  is.  If  He  had  made 
quite  a  different  material  world  with  quite  other  laws,  He 
would  have  been  none  the  less  God,  the  true  object  of  our 
worship.     But  He  did  not  make  the  fundamental  laws  of  moral 


BEHOLDING   THE    WONDERS    OF   GOD's    LAW.         141 

life  to  be  what  they  are  by  any  mere  forthputting  of  His  will. 
They  are  eternal  and  unchangeable.  That  God  should  alter 
them  would  be  for  Him  to  cease  to  be  wise,  and  righteous,  and 
holy,  and  loving.  It  would  be  for  Him  to  cease  to  be  God. 
The  wonders  of  these  laws  are  thus  the  wonders  of  the  Divine 
nature,  and  far  greater,  therefore,  than  any  wonders  of  created 
nature.  At  the  same  time,  these  laws  are  the  laws  of  our 
natures,  of  our  spirits,  of  what  is  much  higher  and  much  more 
wonderful  than  anything  else  to  be  beheld  in  nature.  "  On 
earth,"  it  has  been  said,  "there  is  nothing  great  but  man,  and 
in  man  there  is  nothing  great  but  mind."  And  certainly  a  soul 
is  a  far  more  wonderful  thing  than  even  a  star,  a  spiritual  being 
than  a  material  world,  and  its  laws  far  more  wonderful.  It  is 
spiritual  law  which  determines  men's  relations  to  their  God 
and  to  one  another,  and  it  is  on  obedience  or  disobedience  to  it 
that  the  weal  or  woe  of  individuals  or  societies  chiefly  depends, 
so  that  all  the  marvels  and  mysteries  of  human  life  and  destiny 
gather  around  it. 

If  we  would  see,  however,  its  wonders  in  the  most  impressive 
light  we  must  turn  to  Revelation.  Revelation  in  its  very  nature, 
and  from  beginning  to  end,  is  a  testimony  to  the  sacredness 
of  such  law  as  I  am  now  speaking  of.  Every  miracle,  every 
prophecy,  every  striking  dispensation  recorded  in  Scripture, 
whatever  else  it  may  have  meant,  was  always  a  proclamation 
from  God  to  man  that  they  should  reverence  this  His  law. 
When  this  law  was  republished  on  Sinai  it  was  out  of  blackness 
and  darkness  and  tempest,  amidst  thunders  and  lightnings, 
upon  a  quaking  mountain,  before  a  trembling  nation.  These 
things  were  full  of  significance.  They  were  no  idle,  theatrical 
thunders,  meant  merely  to  astonish  and  frighten  a  rude  and 
barbarous  people.  They  were  the  appropriate  indications  of 
the  majesty  of  the  law.  Yet  to  that  on  Calvary  there  was 
borne  another  and  far  more  wonderful  testimony.  To  behold 
fully  how  wonderful  the  law  is — how  sacred  God  regards  it  to 
be — how  terrible  disobedience  to  it  is — it  is  to  the  cross  we 
must  look ;  to  the  cross,  towering  high  above  all  other  objects, 
in  the  midst  of  the  ages,  in  the  presence  of  the  nations,  to  show 
sin  in  all  its  hideousness  and  righteousness  in  all  its  perfections. 
If  we  can  see  no  wonders  in  the  law  which  Christ  died  to  satisfy 


142         BEHOLDING   THE    WONDERS    OF   GODS    LAW. 

and  glorify,  if  we  do  not  see  it  to  be  unspeakably  more  wonder- 
ful than  all  other  law,  assuredly  our  blindness  is  great  indeed, 
and  we  cannot  too  earnestly  cry  to  a  merciful  God,  "  Open  Thou 
mine  eyes." 

All  that  I  have  thus  far  said  has  in  some  measure  implied 
what  I  have  now  distinctly  to  state,  viz.  that  it  is  not  enough 
to  have  God's  law  before  us  or  His  truth  disclosed,  but  we  need 
also  to  have  our  eyes  opened  to  see  the  law,  our  minds  helped 
to  understand  the  truth.  The  reason  of  man  can  no  more  act 
aright  independently  of  God  than  his  will  can.  If  a  person 
would  do  a  really  good  action,  his  will  must  renounce  itself  and 
submit  to  be  directed  by  the  will  of  God,  and  equally  if  he  would 
really  possess  the  truth  his  reason  must  renounce  itself  and 
submit  to  be  taught  of  God.  Grace  is  just  as  much  needed  to 
control  and  guide  the  reason  as  to  control  and  guide  the  will. 
Just  as  the  will  has  been  made  to  find  its  life  in  the  holiness  of 
God,  reason  has  been  made  to  find  its  life  in  the  wisdom  of 
God ;  neither  of  them  has  been  so  made  as  to  have  any  true 
life  apart  from  and  independent  of  God. 

This  has  been  felt  to  be  so  by  the  wise  and  pious  in  all 
ages  and  countries.  Wherever,  even  among  the  heathen,  a  man 
has  attained  to  any  decided  religious  thoughtfulness,  he  has 
always  recognised  that  he  and  his  fellow-men  have  no  true 
wisdom  which  God  has  not  taught  them,  and  can  only  see 
aright  the  truth  which  ought  to  guide  their  spiritual  life  in  the 
measure  that  their  eyes  are  opened  to  see  it.  You  know  what 
a  multitude  of  prayers  there  are  in  the  Book  of  Psalms  like 
that  in  the  text :  prayers  for  God  to  give  light,  to  open  the  eyes, 
to  make  His  law  clear  and  plain.  But  prayers  of  just  the  same 
kind  are  almost  as  numerous  in  the  Vedas,  in  the  sacred  hymns 
of  the  Hindus.  You  cannot  read  long  anywhere  in  the  Bible 
without  coming  upon  some  declaration  referring  the  wise  and 
good  thoughts  of  men  to  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord,  and  no  more 
can  you  read  long  in  the  Koran  without  coming  on  a  like 
declaration.  When  the  Gospel  appeared,  among  all  the  objec- 
tions urged  against  it  by  the  heathen  philosophers,  no  excep- 
tion, so  far  as  we  know,  was  taken  to  its  doctrine  of  a  direct 
spiritual  action  of  the  Divine  mind  on  the  human,  for  that  had 
been  fully  recognised  not  only  by  the  greatest  of   their  own 


BEHOLDING   THE   WONDER&  OF   GOd's    LAW.         143 

teachers  in  philosophy,  but  even  by  their  popular  poets,  like 
Homer.  When,  therefore,  our  wise  men  nowadays  would 
throw  off  this  belief  in  the  need  of  the  Divine  enlightenment  of 
the  mind  as  a  mere  Bible  dogma  or  Christian  superstition,  they 
fall  into  a  mistake.  What  they  would  get  rid  of  is  one  of  the 
essential  wants  of  humanity,  one  of  those  universal  convictions 
of  the  heart  which  must  be  true  or  our  nature  is  a  lie.  Just  as 
wherever  human  beings  have  felt  their  weakness,  have  felt  all 
natural  and  human  help  fail  them,  they  have  instinctively 
turned  to  their  God  for  help  ;  so  wherever  human  beings  have 
been  sufficiently  quickened  in  mind  to  feel  their  ignorance,  to 
feel  their  need  of  having  greater  insight  into  moral  and  reli- 
gious truth,  they  have  instinctively  turned  to  their  God  for 
light.     And  doubtless  not  in  vain. 

At  any  rate,  a  heathen,  however  great  the  darkness  which 
surrounds  him,  who  feels  the  darkness  and  longs  and  prays  for 
the  light,  is  nearer  to  the  light  and  in  a  less  hopeless  darkness 
than  the  proud  and  self-conceited  man  who  thinks  himself  so 
wise,  so  possessed  of  all  truth,  that  he  has  no  need  of  God's 
teaching,  and  is  greatly  more  intelligent  than  those  who  pray 
for  it.  There  is  no  blindness  like  to  the  blindness  of  that  man. 
Nature  may  ray  out  its  truths  upon  him  from  every  object, 
great  and  small,  which  it  contains  ;  all  the  centuries  of  civilisa- 
tion may  bring  their  lessons  to  him,  and  every  means  of  edu- 
cation which  human  ingenuity  has  devised  may  be  employed  to 
inculcate  and  illustrate  them ;  a  completed  Bible  may  be  at  all 
times  open  to  him ;  the  light  of  the  cross  may  beat  upon  his 
eyeballs ;  and  yet  he  will  remain  stone  blind  to  the  glorious 
realities  which  these  things  are  disclosing  to  the  lowly,  the  un- 
lettered, almost  to  babes  and  sucklings,  and  will,  perhaps,  even 
say  in  his  heart  "  there  is  no  God."  Unless  God  open  our  eyes, 
then,  to  behold  the  wonders  of  His  law  no  clearness  in  the 
outward  revelation  of  its  wonders  will  give  us  a  true  view  of 
them.  We  shall  see  and  yet  not  perceive.  It  will  be  with  us 
as  it  was  with  those  Israelites  to  whom  Moses  said,  "  Ye  have 
seen  all  that  the  Lord  did  before  your  eyes  in  the  land  of  Egypt 
unto  Pharaoh,  and  unto  all  his  servants,  and  unto  all  his  land ; 
the  great  temptations  which  thine  eyes  have  seen,  the  sie^ns, 
and  the  great   miracles ;  yet " — mark   that  "  yet  " — "  yet  the 


144        BEHOLDING   THE    WONDEKS    OF   GOD's    LAW. 

Lord  hatli  not  given  you  a  heart  to  perceive,  and  eyes  to  see, 
and  ears  to  hear  unto  this  day," 

Considerations  like  these  surely  show  abundantly  the 
reasonableness  of  praying  to  God,  like  the  Psalmist,  for  Divine 
enlightenment.  True  prayer  is  the  means  of  putting  ourselves 
in  communion  with  Him  who  can  alone  give  inward  illumina- 
tion, and  it  is  the  expression  of  the  only  frame  or  temper  of 
mind  to  which  it  will  be  granted.  If  prayer  be  true  it  means 
that  he  who  prays  feels  his  dependence  on  God,  and  surrenders 
himself  to  Him.  And  the  feeling  of  dependence  upon  God  for 
spiritual  guidance,  the  self-surrender  of  the  mind  to  be  taught 
by  Him,  is  just  what,  above  all,  God  asks  of  us  as  a  condition 
of  our  gaining  spiritual  perception  and  knowledge,  for  He  is 
most  willing  to  guide  and  teach  us.  Let  us  thus  feel.  Let  us 
realise  that  all  true  knowledge  of  God's  law  must  come  from 
above ;  that,  although  in  virtue  of  our  freedom  of  will  we  can 
withdraw  our  powers  of  perception  and  reasoning  from  the 
Divine  guidance,  yet  if  we  do  so  we  cannot  enjoy  the  vision 
and  experience  of  Divine  things.  Let  us  with  this  conscious- 
ness of  our  natural  ignorance,  and  in  the  belief  that  God  is 
willing  to  teach  us  and  to  turn  our  inward  gloom  into  glorious 
day,  earnestly  seek  to  have  our  eyes  opened,  and  the  central 
darkness  within  us  dispelled,  and  the  great  blessing  will  not  be 
denied  us. 

May  God  bless  what  now  has  been  said.     And  to  His  name 
be  glory  for  ever.     Amen. 


XII. 

NONCONFORMITY  TO   THIS   WORLD. 

"  And  be  not  conformed  to  this  world.   .   .   ." — Romans  xii.  2. 

THE  great  aim  of  the  Apostle  Paul  in  the  first  eleven 
chapters  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  was  to  convince 
his  readers  that  men  of  no  race  or  class,  neither  Jews  nor 
Gentiles,  could  claim  eternal  life  on  the  ground  of  their  own 
merits,  but,  in  order  to  receive  it,  must  be  content  to  accept 
it  humbly  and  thankfully  from  the  grace  of  God.  His  own 
summary  of  his  whole  argument  is,  "  For  God  hath  concluded 
them  all  in  unbelief  that  He  might  have  mercy  upon  all." 
To  this  mercy  or  grace  he  traces  the  calling,  the  election,  the 
justification,  the  sanctification,  the  peace,  the  joys,  the  hopes, 
and,  in  a  word,  all  the  blessings  shown  by  him  to  be  included 
in  the  portion  of  a  Christian.  These  glorious  privileges  are  all 
mercies,  pure  mercies  of  God. 

From  the  commencement  of  the  twelfth  chapter  to  the  close 
of  his  epistle  we  find  the  Apostle  presenting  those  mercies 
the  nature  and  fulness  of  which  he  had  previously  unfolded 
in  doctrine,  as  motives  to  Christian  activity.  They  do  not 
produce  the  effect  which  they  ought  to  have  if  they  do  not 
produce  righteous  and  holy  living.  It  is  accordingly  on  the 
solid  foundation  which  these  mercies  supply  that  the  Apostle 
raises  his  practical  exhortations.  He  asks  us,  he  beseeches  us, 
to  do  thus  and  thus  for  God  because  of  what  God  has  done 
for  us. 

And  as  our  first  great  duty,  the  most  comprehensive  of 
duties,  he  urges  us  to  yield  ourselves  up  in  the  body,  with 
every  power  of  action,  love,  and  service  which  we  possess,  to 
God  as  a  living  sacrifice,  a  holy,  acceptable,  and  rational  offer- 
ing.    He  could  ask  from  us  no  more  than  he  has  thus  done, 

for  he  has  asked  everything.     He  could  ask  from  us  no  less, 

145  ,, 

K 


146  NONCONFORMITY    TO    THIS   WORLD. 

for  all  this  is  due.  Those  so  entirely  dependent  on  God  as 
we  are,  as  all  men  are — who  owe  as  we  do  everything  to  the 
mercies  of  God — can  only  live  aright  if  we  live  wholly  to  God, 
and  withhold  nothing  from  Him, 

Closely  connected  with  this  all-embracing  exhortation  or 
appeal  are  the  injunctions  in  the  verse  from  which  my  text 
is  taken.  They  are  implied  in  it,  and  they  help  to  explain  and 
define  it.  The  advice  not  to  be  conformed  to  the  world,  but  to 
be  transformed  through  renewal  of  the  mind,  tells  us  how  we 
are  to  present  to  God  the  sacrifices  of  our  bodies,  of  our  own 
selves  in  the  body.  What  is  required  is  that  through  a  radical 
change  in  our  natures,  our  affections  be  so  withdrawn  from, 
and  raised  above,  the  world,  and  so  surrendered  and  devoted 
to  God,  that  our  bodies,  with  all  their  living  energies,  organs, 
and  members,  faculties  and  desires,  may  be  directed  towards 
the  accomplishment  not  of  low  and  selfish  aims,  but  of  exalted 
and  divine  ones.  This  is  the  chief  demand,  the  fundamental 
law,  of  the  Christian  life.  He  who  complies  with  it  is  a 
Christian ;  he  who  does  not  is  not.  He  who  complies  with  it 
is  a  man  of  the  highest  type  to  be  found  on  earth ;  he  who 
does  not,  whatever  good  qualities  he  may  possess,  is  of  a  lower 
type.  And,  clearly,  he  who  complies  with  it  must  be  what  the 
Apostle  meant  by  "  not  conformed  to  the  world." 

"  Be  not  conformed  to  this  world,"  says  he  ;  or  more  exactly, 
as  in  the  Eevised  Version,  "be  not  fashioned  according  to  this 
world  " — this  age.  The  spirit  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived  was 
evil.  The  world  around  him  lay  in  darkness.  The  Jews  had 
rejected  Messiah  and  were  trusting  in  a  righteousness  altogether 
false  for  acceptance  with  God.  The  Gentiles  were  given  up  to 
superstition  and  vice.  The  world  was  emphatically  a  wicked 
world,  alienated  from  God,  sold  under  sin,  enslaved  by  Satan. 
But  God  in  His  mercy  had  called  out  of  it,  had  redeemed  out 
of  it,  in  and  through  Christ,  those  who  received  Christ.  They 
had  been  brought  into  another  world ;  they  had  been  inspired 
with  the  spirit  of  a  new  age ;  and  they  were  not  to  follow  the 
fashion  of  the  world  out  of  which  they  had  been  delivered,  not 
to  be  ruled  by  the  spirit  of  the  age  which  for  them  should  be 
for  ever  past  and  gone. 

When  St  Paul  spoke,  then,  of  "  the  world  "  or  "  age"  it  was 


NONCONFORMITY  TO  THIS  WORLD.       147 

of  it  as  a  system  or  constitution  opposed  to  another  which  he 
wished  to  see  replace  it ;  as  a  kingdom  contrary  to  the  kingdom 
of  God  ;  as  the  world  of  those  who  rejected  Christ  in  contrast 
to  the  world  of  those  who  accepted  Hira ;  as  an  embodiment 
of  principles  which  he  hated.  It  was  in  the  light  of  its  prin- 
ciples that  he  looked  upon  it.  Here,  on  the  one  hand,  was 
Christianity  with  all  its  holy  precepts,  with  all  its  rich  promises, 
with  all  its  gladdening  prospects.  There,  on  the  other  hand, 
were  self-righteousness  and  heathenism,  the  consequences  of 
which  were  ignorance,  unbelief,  selfishness,  crime,  and  misery. 
Here  was  the  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom  which  came  from  God 
and  led  to  eternal  life.  There  were  the  false  principles  which 
ruled  in  the  world  and  led  to  destruction.  Hence  St  Paul 
exhorted  men  so  earnestly  by  the  mercies  of  God  not  to  be 
conformed  to  the  world ;  that  is,  not  to  act  on  its  principles, 
not  to  regulate  their  lives  by  its  spirit. 

This  being  what  he  meant  by  the  world,  we  see  what  the 
exhortation  meant,  and  also  what  it  did  not  mean.  Some  have 
understood  it  as  if  it  required  Christians  to  break  the  natural 
ties  which  bind  them  to  society,  to  isolate  themselves  from 
their  fellow-men,  and  flee  to  the  hermit's  cave  or  the  monk's 
cell ;  or  at  least  to  set  aside  the  common  customs  and  arrange- 
ments of  society,  and  to  adopt  peculiar  ways  so  as  to  be 
obviously  and  outwardly  unlike  other  people.  This  is  a  most 
mistaken  view.  St  Paul  does  not  exhort  us  to  run  away  from 
or  go  out  of  the  world,  but  not  to  fashion  ourselves  according 
to  the  spirit  of  it, — not  to  live  with  its  life.  The  noncon- 
formity to  the  world  which  he  enjoins  is  neither  withdrawal 
from  it  nor  eccentricity.  Without  any  violation  of  its  precept, 
the  Christian  may  act  as  men  of  the  world  do  in  all  cases 
where  his  acting  does  not  involve  the  adoption  of  worldly, 
unchristian  principles. 

Surrounded  although  the  early  Christians,  the  contemporaries 
of  St  Paul,  were  by  a  heathen  society,  there  were  yet  many  things 
which  they  could  do  in  common  with  their  heathen  neighbours 
without  accepting  any  article  of  a  heathen  creed  or  displaying 
any  feature  of  a  heathen  spirit,  and  from  doing  no  such  thing 
did  the  Apostle  prohibit  them.  He  did  not  demand  that 
Christians  should  in  any  respect  do  the  opposite  of  what  the 


148  NONCONFORMITY    TO   THIS    WORLD. 

heathen  did  merely  because  the  heathen  did  it.  He  demanded 
no  unnecessary  singularity,  for  instance,  as  to  food  or  dress, 
mode  of  speech  or  mode  of  life.  He  was  in  his  own  conduct 
far  above  all  littleness  of  that  sort,  and  he  never  recommended 
it  to  others.  He  was,  as  he  himself  tells  us,  all  things  to  all 
men,  in  order  to  gain  them  to  the  truth.  He  was  too  much 
in  earnest,  and  had  too  much  to  do,  to  create  unnecessary 
obstacles  and  enemies.  He  was  willing  to  conform  to  any 
arrangement  of  society  which  did  not  include,  as  it  were,  in 
the  very  nature  of  it,  worldliness  of  spirit,  and  so  could  not  be 
transformed  or  sanctified  by  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel. 

In  perfect  consistency,  therefore,  both  with  his  example  and 
precepts,  Christians  may  do  whatever  others  do,  provided  the 
principles  of  their  faith  be  not  compromised  and  the  principles 
of  the  world  antagonistic  to  them  espoused.  There  is  a  kind  of 
conformity  to  the  world  to  which  all  may  well  submit.  There 
is  a  certain  authority  in  society  which,  within  certain  limits,  no 
man  of  sound  judgment  will  dream  of  disputing.  It  is  surely 
a  thing  on  which  we  may  congratulate  ourselves  that  society 
should  take  off  our  hands  the  trouble  of  attending  to  a  vast 
number  of  matters  of  trifling  moment ;  that  it  should  in  a 
general  way  determine  for  us  the  dress  we  are  to  wear  and 
rules  of  behaviour  we  are  to  observe  in  different  countries,  and 
ranks,  and  occasions  in  life.  A  man  must  have  either  an  ill- 
balanced  mind  or  very  little  to  do  if,  without  attributing  any 
sacredness  to  these  decisions  of  society,  or  adhering  with  any 
scrupulosity  to  them,  he  do  not  quietly  accept  them,  thankful 
to  be  thus  not  distracted  from  the  real  work  of  life  by  the 
occupation  of  his  mind  with  things  unworthy  of  it.  Our 
Christian  warfare  is  not  against  the  outward  forms  of  the 
world  in  any  case  where  these  can  be  separated  from  the  evil 
of  the  world.  It  is  against  the  evil  life  itself  of  the  world. 
It  is  no  fantastic  and  trivial,  but  a  most  real  and  momentous 
struggle. 

It  is  a  struggle  which  every  Christian  is  still  called  on  to 
maintain.  The  world  is  yet  with  us.  It  has,  indeed,  we 
thankfully  acknowledge,  changed  since  the  days  of  St  Paul. 
The  world  around  him  was  almost  entirely  contrary  to  the 
kingdom  of  God.      Now,  in  a  professedly  Christian   country 


NONCONFORMITY    TO    THIS    WORLD.  149 

like  ours,  the  leaven  of  the  Gospel  has  pervaded  and  more  or 
less  changed  the  whole  constitution  of  society,  so  that  in  all  its 
elements  it  has  been  brought  partially  within  the  kingdom  of 
God  and  taken  partially  out  of  what  St  Paul  called  "  this  world." 
But  human  society  is  still  everywhere  largely  worldly  in  the 
sense  of  evil  and  unchristian.  Hence  the  exhortation  to  be 
not  conformed  to  the  world  has  not  ceased  to  be  as  needful 
as  ever.  In  one  respect  it  is  more  needful  than  ever,  because 
the  difference  between  the  worldly  and  the  Christian  life  is 
now  often  in  appearance  little  while  in  reality  immense. 

We  have  thus  far  seen  chiefly  what  nonconformity  to  the 
world  is  not.  We  have  now  to  inquire  more  specially  what 
it  is.  How  are  we  so  to  fashion  our  lives  as  not  to  be  con- 
formed to  this  world  ?  What  is  positively  implied  in  the  non- 
conformity to  this  world  which  is  enjoined  ? 

Well,  this  at  least  is  implied,  that  those  of  us  who  comply 
with  the  injunction  belong  to  another  world,  and  live  there. 
It  is  implied  that  "  this  world  "  of  sense  and  time  is  not  our 
all ;  that  our  thoughts  are  not  bounded  by  it ;  that  our  aifec- 
tions  are  not  wholly  or  even  chiefly  set  upon  it ;  that  we  have  a 
sphere  of  existence,  of  conscious  and  active  existence,  indepen- 
dent of  and  above  it,  into  which  we  can  withdraw,  in  which  we 
are  most  at  home,  where  the  real  seat  and  the  true  springs  of  our 
life  are,  and  out  of  which  we  can  come  to  influence,  dominate, 
and  use  this  world.  There  is  implied,  that  is  to  say,  in  scrip- 
tural language,  a  life  hid  with  Christ  in  God ;  having  our  con- 
versation in  heaven ;  citizenship  in  the  kingdom  of  God. 

Oh  my  friends,  is  this  true  of  us  ?  Is  this  in  very  fact  the 
case  with  us  ?  All  depends  upon  it.  If  we  are  really  only  of 
this  world  we  must  be  conformed  to  this  world ;  if  we  wholly 
belong  to  it  we  cannot  rule  it,  it  must  rule  us,  must  fashion 
us  according  to  its  own  evil  earthly  nature,  instead  of  our 
fashioning  it  according  to  the  holy  and  divine  nature  which  we 
might  have  in  God  through  Christ.  There  are  many  to  whom 
this  world  is  virtually  the  only  one ;  who  persistently  content 
themselves  with  it;  whose  minds  are  seldom, if  ever,  intimately 
and  intensely  in  contact  with  spiritual  things,  the  realities  of 
eternity ;  who  have  no  real  and  abiding  communion  with  the 
Father  of  Spirits  ;  and  for  all  such  it  is  self-evident  that  non- 


150       NONCONFORMITY  TO  THIS  WORLD. 

conformity  to  the  world  is  an  absolute  impossibility.  If  we 
would  not  be  conformed  to  the  world,  therefore,  we  must  not 
be  as  they.  We  must  see  to  it  that  we  are  really  living  in 
another  and  higher  world,  that  our  thoughts  rise  above  earth, 
that  our  affections  stretch  beyond  time,  that  our  spirits  day  by 
day  and  year  by  year  find  their  rest  and  joy  in  the  realised 
presence  and  love  of  our  God  and  Saviour. 

Further,  in  order  that  we  may  not  be  conformed  to  this 
world,  the  spirit  of  the  higher  world  to  which  I  have  been 
referring  must  manifest  itself  in  our  characters  and  conduct ; 
the  life  which  comes  from  God  and  tends  to  God  must  make 
itself  perceptible  in  our  dispositions  and  actions.  What  is 
required  of  us  is  not  that  we  should  withdraw  from  the  world, 
but  that  we  should  overcome  the  evil  of  the  world  with  good. 
It  is  that  we  should  impress  as  far  as  we  can  the  image  of 
Christ  on  the  world,  and  so,  as  far  as  we  can,  help  to  restore  it 
to  its  lawful  Lord.  It  is  to  exhibit  all  Christian  graces  in  all 
the  human  relations  in  which  we  have  been  providentially 
placed.  It  is  to  exemplify  the  righteousness  of  the  kingdom 
of  God — the  faith  and  love  towards  God,  the  compassion,  long- 
suffering,  self-sacrificing  kindness,  and  generosity  towards 
men,  the  purity,  peaceableness,  and  justice,  which  are  the 
essential  laws  and  distinctive  characteristics  of  the  kingdom 
of  God — where  the  unrighteousness  of  the  kingdom  of  Satan 
is  still  prevalent,  and  needs  to  be  rebuked  and  expelled.  It 
is  to  walk  as  children  of  the  light  however  thick  around  us 
may  be  the  darkness. 

In  this  respect,  as  in  all  others,  we  should  look  to  Christ 
as  our  great  example.  He  was  in  the  world  but  not  of  it. 
He  lived  on  earth  and  complied  with  all  the  obligations  of 
life  on  earth,  but  kept  Himself  pure  from  all  earthly  defile- 
ment. He  was  no  ascetic,  no  eccentric,  no  abnormal  man ; 
but,  on  the  contrary,  the  most  human  of  men,  the  perfect 
man,  the  richest  in  all  the  affections  and  sympathies  of  man. 
He  made  Himself  the  brother  of  all  men  as  none  else  has  ever 
done ;  humbled  Himself  and  sacrificed  Himself  to  serve  and 
save  them  as  none  else  has  ever  done ;  bore  their  burdens,  felt 
their  griefs,  took  on  Himself  their  infirmities  as  none  else  has 
ever  done ;    and  yet,  through  being  and  doing  all   this.    He 


NONCONFORMITY    TO    THIS    WORLD.  151 

only  showed  Himself  all  the  more  wonderfully  separate  from 
sinners  and  separate  from  the  world,  all  the  more  absolutely 
holy,  all  the  more  absolutely  divine.  The  more  that  we  par- 
ticipate in  His  Spirit,  the  more  that  we  live  in  Him  and  He  in 
us,  the  more  shall  we  be  like  what  He  was  in  the  world,  the 
more  shall  we  influence  the  world  for  good,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  the  more  shall  we  be  separate  from  it,  the  less  shall  we 
be  conformed  to  it. 

Nonconformity  to  the  world,  I  must  add,  implies  two  other 
things  which  must  be  mentioned,  yet  which  are  so  obvious 
that  they  may  be  merely  mentioned. 

The  first  is  that  no  one  can  fail  to  be  conformed  to  the 
world  who  takes  as  his  standard  of  judgment  and  rule  of 
action  the  opinion  and  approval  of  the  world,  not  the  truth 
and  will  of  God.  And  there  are  many  such  persons.  There 
are  many  among  us  who  feel  themselves  safe  only  when  think- 
ing as  others  think  and  doing  as  others  do ;  only  when  not 
differing  in  sentiment  or  practice  from  their  neighbours. 
They  do  not  realise  how  worthless  a  thing  mere  opinion  is  ; 
that  it  has  no  value  at  all  unless  it  correspond  to  fact ;  that 
what  God  demands  of  us  is  to  believe  what  is  really  true,  and 
to  do  what  is  really  right,  not  to  believe  or  do  merely  what 
other  people  believe  to  be  true  or  right  to  be  done.  God 
would  have  us  to  rest  only  on  fact,  not  opinion ;  on  reality,  not 
appearance ;  on  what  He  has  Himself  done  or  enacted,  not 
on  what  we  or  others  fancy  or  wish.  He  requires  of  us  a 
truthfulness  which  will  be  content  with  no  substitute  for  His 
truth.  And  if  we  would  not  be  conformed  to  the  world  we 
must  carry  into  our  religious  life,  into  our  whole  life,  this 
spirit  of  absolute  truthfulness.  We  must  be  of  those  for 
whom  the  great  question  in  life  is  not  what  do  men  say,  or 
think,  or  do ;  not  what  is  the  opinion,  will,  or  practice  of  the 
world,  but  what  is  true  and  right  in  itself;  what  is  the  judg- 
ment and  will  of  God. 

Next,  the  man  who  would  not  be  conformed  to  the  world 
must  not  only  refuse  to  accept  a  worldly  standard  of  life,  but 
set  before  himself  other  than  worldly  ends  of  life.  He  cannot, 
without  conformity  to  the  world,  make  worldly  gain,  or  honour, 
or  pleasure  his  chief  aim,  or  waste  his  strength  and  substance 


152  NONCONFORMITY    TO    THIS    WORLD. 

on  what  is  frivolous,  sensuous,  sinful.  He  cannot,  without 
conformity  to  the  world,  live  exclusively  or  mainly  to  self  in 
any  form,  for  living  to  self  is  selfishness,  and  selfishness  is 
the  very  root  of  all  worldliness.  Out  of  it  there  springs  only 
a  poor,  mean,  earthly  life,  in  which  no  human  soul  can  develop 
itself,  but  necessarily  consumes  and  destroys  itself.  To  be 
not  conformed  to  the  world  man  must  live  to  Christ,  must  live 
in  an  atmosphere  of  love,  must  live  as  becomes  a  spiritual  and 
imraoi'tal  being,  a  child  of  God,  and  heir  of  immortality.  He 
must  realise  his  true  relationship  to  God  and  man,  and  his 
obligations  to  seek  to  glorify  God  and  do  good  to  men.  This 
high  aim  he  must  strive  to  carry  out  consistently  and  uniformly 
in  every  department  of  life,  in  every  action,  and  in  every  word. 
Only  so  can  he  avoid  all  conformity  to  the  world. 

It  will  now,  I  hope,  be  obvious  to  you  from  what  has  been 
said  that  the  injunction  of  St  Paul  to  be  not  conformed  to  the 
world  is  in  its  own  nature  a  very  broad  and  comprehensive 
one.  It  is  so  also  as  regards  its  sphere  of  application.  The 
whole  of  our  life,  the  whole  range  of  our  consciousness,  activity, 
and  influence,  should  be  ruled  by  it. 

"Be  not  conformed  to  this  world."  Be  not  conformed  to 
it  in  your  hearts.  The  "world"  is  there,  and  you  have  to 
overcome  it  there  by  conforming  to  the  law  of  God  there,  so 
that  not  the  world  but  God's  kingdom  may  reign  within  you. 
The  kingdom  of  God  is  not  to  be  thought  of  as  merely  a  far- 
away world  or  a  churchly  organisation.  On  the  contrary,  it 
is  essentially  humility  and  meekness  of  spirit,  hatred  of  sin, 
love  of  righteousness,  a  merciful  disposition,  a  pure,  honest, 
and  earnest  heart.  To  be  conformed  to  it,  and  not  conformed 
to  the  world,  you  must  have  these  and  not  their  opposites. 
Your  thoughts  must  be  just,  your  feelings  pure,  all  your 
inclinations  good,  all  your  aims  generous  and  noble.  It  is 
precisely  here,  in  fact,  that  the  main  stress,  the  decisive  shock 
and  struggle  of  the  battle  which  you  have  to  wage  in  life 
must  lie.  Conquer  inwardly  and  you  will  conquer  outwardly. 
Be  conquered  within  and  you  will  be  conquered  without.  The 
heart  itself  is  the  key  of  the  whole  position.  Defeated  there, 
no  side  victories  will  save  you  from  crushing  disaster.  Out 
of  the  heart  are  the  issues  of  life  and  of  death.  * 


NONCONFORMITY   TO    THIS    WORLD.  153 

"  Be  not  conformed  to  this  world."  Be  not  conformed  to  it 
within  the  circle  of  the  family.  That  may  seem  to  be  a  small 
circle.  But  it  is  just  within  the  narrowest  spheres  that  the 
best  and  most  important  work  is  often  done.  Were  a  Christian 
spirit,  a  truly  good  spirit,  prevalent  in  the  families  of  our  land, 
our  whole  social  life  would  soon  be  Christian  and  good.  But, 
alas,  a  worldly,  immoral,  irreligious  spirit  is  far  more  common. 
The  fountains  are  polluted.  How  can  the  streams  be  pure? 
Fathers  and  mothers  exert  a  far  greater  influence  for  good  or 
evil  on  society  than  politicians  and  legislators.  A  celebrated 
author  has  declared  that  "  the  first  seven  years  of  life  are  the 
most  decisive,  because  then  a  mother's  discipline  lays  so  firm  a 
foundation  that  the  rest  of  life  is  seldom  able  to  affect  it." 
Not  improbably  he  was  right.  A  mother  who  is  herself  a 
Christian  may  by  her  example  and  discipline  do,  without  going 
beyond  her  own  household,  more  for  Christ's  cause  than  a 
minister  of  the  Gospel  can  effect  by  the  preaching  of  a  life- 
time. But  alas,  how  many  mothers  take  no  thought  of  using 
their  power  aright,  and  so  abuse  it  through  conformity  to  the 
evil  passions  and  evil  ways  of  this  world,  as  to  ruin  the  souls 
of  their  children  and  grievously  to  wrong  and  injure  society ! 

"  Be  not  conformed  to  this  world."  Be  not  conformed  to  it 
within  the  Church.  The  Church  should  be  altogether  un- 
worldly. It  may  be  in  reality  the  most  worldly  part  of  this 
world.  The  house  dedicated  to  God  is  not  unfrequently  one  in 
which  those  who  are  wont  to  assemble  in  it  grievously  fail  to 
realise  as  they  ought  how  those  who  are  united  with  Christ  are 
united  with  one  another.  There  was  a  time,  not  so  very  far 
distant,  when  the  non-official  members  of  our  congregations 
were  hardly  expected  to  feel  much  interest  or  take  much  part 
in  their  work  or  welfare.  There  has  certainly  been  consider- 
able improvement  in  this  respect  during  the  last  half  century. 
But  there  is  room  for  vast  improvement  still.  What  the 
Church  above  all  needs,  what  our  congregations  most  require, 
is  an  abundant  baptism  of  the  Spirit  which  made  the  multitude 
of  those  who  first  received  the  Gospel  "  of  one  heart  and  of  one 
soul."  Nowhere  is  the  cold  and  deadening  spirit  of  the  world 
80  out  of  place  as  in  connection  with  the  life  and  work  of  the 
Church,  where  all  is  vain  if  the  warm,  sincere,  and  invigorating 


154  NONCONFORMITY   TO    THIS    WORLD. 

love,  which  is  the  most  distinctive  and  precious  gift  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  be  lacking. 

Time  does  not  permit  me  to  insist  on  the  importance  of  our 
not  being  conformed  to  the  world  in  our  ordinary  business  or 
professional  life ;  or  to  indicate  how  as  citizens  of  a  nation  and 
members  of  general  society  we  ought  to  exert  what  influence 
we  can  to  promote  conformity  to  the  laws  of  truth  and  righteous- 
ness, and  subserviency  to  the  holy  and  beneficent  ends  which 
God  prescribes  for  nations  and  society. 

"  Be  not  conformed  to  this  world."  It  is  easy  advice,  it  may 
perhaps  be  said,  to  give  but  very  diflicult  advice  to  take.  Yes, 
my  friends,  and  it  may  even  be  said  advice  utterly  impossible 
for  any  one  to  take  of  himself.  The  Apostle  tells  us  as  much 
very  plainly  in  the  words  immediately  following  those  which 
we  have  considered.  There  is  no  freedom  from  conformity  to 
the  world  to  be  hoped  for  by  us  unless  through  our  being 
transformed  by  the  renewal  of  our  minds.  We  must  have  a 
new  nature  if  we  are  to  live  in  a  new  world.  The  nature  we 
are  born  with — the  corrupt  nature  of  flesh  and  blood  and  of 
the  will  of  man — is  capable  only  of  a  worldly  life.  What  is  of 
the  earth  must  be  earthy.  The  flesh  knows  not  the  things  of 
the  spirit,  for  they  are  spiritually  discerned. 

But  to  whom  does  God  ever  deny  a  new  nature  ?  To  whom 
does  He  ever  refuse  His  Holy  Spirit  ?  To  none  who  earnestly 
ask  for  them.  Of  all  His  gifts  He  is  most  willing  to  give  us 
the  greatest  of  all.  His  Holy  Spirit.  Yes,  more  willing  than  to 
allow  His  sun  to  shine  upon  us  or  to  send  us  daily  bread.  The 
Holy  Spirit  is  a  gift  which  He  beseeches  all  men  to  ask  and 
receive.  If  we  would  resist  the  world,  therefore,  successfully; 
if  we  would  conquer  it  instead  of  conforming  to  it ;  let  us 
beseech  God  earnestly  and  continuously  to  renew  our  minds ; 
to  give  us  holy  hearts  through  His  Holy  Spirit ;  to  do  this  now, 
and  to  be  ever  doing  it,  until  no  element  of  the  old  nature,  no 
principle  of  "  this  world  "  is  to  be  found  in  us. 

May  God  bless  what  has  now  been  said.  And  to  His  name 
be  glory  for  ever.     Amen. 


XIII. 
REST  IN   CHRIST. 

"Come  unto  Me,  all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you 
rest." — Matthew  xi.  28. 

CHRIST  here  declares  Himself  to  be  God  and  Saviour  by 
the  promise  of  what  Almighty  God  and  a  Perfect  Saviour 
can  alone  give.  His  promise,  however,  is  neither  universal  nor 
absolute.  It  is  only  made  to  a  specified  class  of  men — the 
labouring  and  heavy  laden ;  and  to  that  class  only  on  a 
specified  condition — the  coming  to  Himself.  It  therefore 
cannot  be  understood  by  us  unless  we  consider  it  with  refer- 
ence to  the  persons  to  whom  it  is  made,  and  with  reference 
to  the  condition  on  which  it  is  made.  When  so  considered 
it  will  be  found  to  contain  the  very  marrow,  the  substance,  of 
the  Gospel.  God  grant  that  with  grateful  and  glad  hearts  we 
may  meditate  on,  and  comply  with,  the  blessed  invitation  here 
given  us. 

This,  then,  has  first  to  be  noticed,  that  Christ  makes  His 
invitation  and  promises  His  reward  only  to  the  labouring  and 
heavy  laden.  He  asks  nothing  from,  and  promises  nothing  to, 
those  who  feel  as  if  they  had  no  burdens  to  bear,  or  as  if  they 
had  strength  enough  in  themselves  to  support  all  that  had  been 
or  could  be  laid  upon  them.  Now  there  are  two  feelings 
essentially  characteristic  of  those  who  labour  and  are  heavy 
laden.  There  is  a  feeling  of  pressure  on  the  soul,  and  there 
is  a  feeling  of  feebleness  within  it.  Indifference  or  insensi- 
bility in  its  various  forms  is  in  direct  antagonism  to  the  former 
of  these  feelings ;  pride  or  self-dependence  in  its  various  forms 
is  in  direct  antagonism  to  the  latter. 

There  is  a  feeling  of  pressure  on  the  soul.  Life  is  realised  to 
involve  weighty  responsibilities.  It  is  realised  to  involve  tasks 
difficult  and  harassing.  All  who  are  spiritually  quite  careless  and 
thoughtless,  all  who  rejoice  exclusively  in  youth  or  strength,  in 


156  REST    IN    CHJEIIST. 

attractions  of  body  or  acquirements  of  mind,  in  popular  applause 
or  worldly  wealth,  labour  not  and  bear  no  load  because  life  lies  as 
yet  with  no  weight  upon  them, — because  they  fancy  it  far  lighter 
and  far  less  serious  than  it  is, — because  they  have  never  looked 
upon  it  clearly  and  comprehensively, — have  never  learned  the 
heaviness  of  its  tasks  and  the  hollowness  of  its  promises, — how 
real  its  evils  are  and  how  false  its  joys  are.  They  have  seen  it 
only  when  surrounded  with  the  halo  of  a  transient  beauty,  with 
a  cloudy  and  delusive  glory.  Their  experience  of  it  has  been 
wanting  alike  in  depth  and  breadth,  has  been  both  superficial 
and  one-sided ;  its  real  nature  they  have  not  reached,  and  its 
darker  aspects,  its  serious  trials,  have  not  come  round  to  them. 
Hence  they  have  no  labour,  no  heaviness  of  soul,  and  hence, 
also,  Christ  cannot  speak  to  them,  nor  can  His  ministers,  in 
His  name,  in  words  of  direct  invitation,  for  they  have  not  yet 
reached  the  stage  of  thought  and  feeling  where  such  words 
would  be  intelligible  to  them.  Burdens  must  be  felt  before 
the  offer  to  bear  them  can  be  accepted  and  valued.  All  that 
we  can  do  for  such  persons  is  to  assure  them  in  words  of 
solemn  and  affectionate  warning  that  this  lightness  of  feeling 
which  they  possess,  this  careless  buoyancy  of  heart  and  spirit, 
is  a  delusion,  and  that  when  they  have  come  to  take  a  deeper 
and  more  comprehensive  view  they  will  find  out  their  mistake. 
It  is  a  serious  and  a  testing  question,  then,  for  us  all,  Have 
we  in  God's  good  providence  been  brought  even  thus  far? 
Have  we  been  brought  to  a  knowledge  of  the  seriousness  and 
responsibility  of  life  ?  Have  we  any  real  sense  of  its  painful 
pressure  upon  us  ?  For  while  we  may  have  reached  this  point 
and  yet  not  be  true  Christians,  if  we  have  not  reached  it  we 
are  assuredly  not  Christians,  and  our  whole  view  of  the  world 
and  of  our  position  in  it  must  be  changed,  and  even  reversed, 
before  we  can  understand  what  Christianity  is,  and  what  it 
aims  at, — before  we  can  make  a  meaning  out  of  the  injunctions 
of  the  Gospel,  or  lay  hold  of  its  promises. 

The  feeling  of  pressure  on  the  soul,  the  sense  of  a  heavy 
burden  to  be  borne,  may  come  from  various  causes.  It  may 
come  from  afiliction,  God  may  dispel  a  man's  illusive  fancies 
about  life  by  sending  loss  of  health  and  fortune,  by  sending 
pain  and  sorrow.     Many  have  thus  been  led,  and  are  daily 


REST   IN   CHEIST.  157 

being  led,  to  alter  their  views  about  it.  They  iSnd  by  experi- 
ence that  it  can  press  with  a  weight  they  never  dreamed  of  in 
other  days,  never  for  a  moment  supposed  possible.  They  find 
that,  let  them  nerve  themselves  up  to  bear  its  burdens  as  they 
may,  it  needs  the  utmost  tension  of  every  faculty  to  do  so ;  ay, 
and  that  after  all  they  stagger  and  grow  faint — strength  ebbing 
away,  hope  dying  out,  darkness  creeping  over  the  eyes,  and 
despair  settling  down  on  the  heart. 

Or  it  may  come  from  disappointed  desires.  So  it  does  in 
many.  They  set  their  hearts  on  some  worldly  object  or  other. 
They  immensely  over-estimate  the  worth  of  that  object;  and 
immensely  under-estimate  the  exertions  that  must  be  made  to 
obtain  it.  It  seems  within  easy  reach,  but  baflBes  and  mocks 
their  attempts  to  grasp  it,  until  at  length,  when  their  strength 
is  exhausted,  they  behold  it  disappear  and  escape  them  for 
ever ;  or  if  they  succeed  in  obtaining  it,  find  that  what  they 
took  for  precious  gold  is  merest  rubbish — that  what  they  have 
pursued  as  the  highest  good  wholly  fails  to  satisfy  them — and 
that,  if  their  life  is  not  to  be  one  long  ruinous  error,  they  must 
now,  when  their  vigour  is  gone  and  their  days  are  near  a  close, 
begin  the  great  work  of  it  over  again.  Thus  wearied  with 
their  useless  efforts,  and  in  bitterness  of  heart  because  of  dis- 
appointed desires,  they  can  understand  right  well  the  expostu- 
lations of  the  Prophet,  "  Wherefore  do  ye  spend  money  for 
that  which  is  not  bread  ?  and  labour  for  that  which  satisfieth 
not?" 

Guilt,  again,  is  another  cause  of  painful  j^ressure,  and, 
indeed,  the  heaviest  and  sorest  of  all.  Multitudes,  it  is  true, 
have  consciences  so  dull  and  dead  that  they  never  realise  that 
God  has  claims  upon  them  which  they  are  not  meeting,  and 
that  consequently  their  guilt  is  fearfully  accumulating  against 
them.  These,  of  course,  owing  to  their  strange  and  stupid 
insensibility,  are  conscious  of  no  burden.  But  whenever  a 
man  has  been  aroused  out  of  this  lethargy  and  so  quickened 
in  conscience  as  to  ask  himself  seriously.  How  does  this  mass 
of  constantly  increasing  guilt  affect  me  in  God's  sight  and  as 
an  immortal  being?  Is  it  not  all  standing  against  me  as  a 
debt  for  which  I  am  responsible  to  the  uttermost  farthing? 
Do  not  reason  and  conscience  and  Scripture  declare  that  what 


158  REST    IN    CHRIST. 

has  been  sown  in  the  form  of  sin  must  be  reaped  in  the  form 
of  punishment? — I  say  when  a  man  has  once  been  brought 
seriously  to  put  to  himself  these  surely  most  reasonable  ques- 
tions, and  has  found,  as  find  he  must,  that  he  has  been  in- 
cessantly and  zealously  treasuring  up  wrath  against  the  day 
of  wrath,  it  is  no  marvel  if  he  feel  crushed  down  by  a  dreadful 
load  which  he  can  neither  bear  nor  cast  off. 

Sin  as  a  present  power  within  us  is  another  cause,  and  what 
its  weight  and  might  are  no  man  knows  until  he  begins  to  hate 
and  fight  against  it.  Then  it  seems  to  cling  the  closer  and  to 
weigh  the  heavier,  as  if  its  strength  were  increased  by  every 
effort  put  forth  to  weaken  it.  Sin  is  as  certainly  stronger 
than  we  are,  as  it  is  feebler  than  God  is.  A  single  bad  habit, 
when  it  has  once  got  firmly  rooted  in  the  nature,  is  more  than 
most  men  can  contend  successfully  against.  It  requires,  for 
instance,  a  fortitude  of  character  which,  alas !  is  very  rare,  for 
a  confirmed  drunkard  to  free  himself  from  the  degrading 
thraldom  of  his  ruinous  passion?  What  shall  we  say,  then, 
when  the  task  is  not  to  get  rid  of  one  bad  habit  but  of  all — 
not  to  overcome  some  single  vice  but  to  obtain  the  victory  over 
a  vile  heart  ?  What  but  that  the  leopard  may  as  easily  change 
its  spots,  or  the  camel  pass  through  the  eye  of  a  needle,  as  a 
man  do  this  ?  What  but  that  the  strongest  who  self-reliantly 
grapples  with  sin,  resolved  in  his  own  strength  to  conquer  and 
crush  it,  will  soon  find  himself  grovelling  as  a  helpless  victim 
beneath  the  foot  of  his  antagonist  ?  Sin  as  a  present  power — 
this  too,  then,  is  indeed  a  burden  and  a  heavy  load. 

I  have  thus  described  the  nature  and  pointed  out  the  causes 
of  a  sense  of  pressure  on  the  soul.  But  a  state  of  painful 
labour  supposes  a  sense  of  feebleness  within  as  well  as  a  sense 
of  pressure  from  without.  The  heaviest  load  is  no  burden 
where  there  is  strength  adequate  to  its  easy  support.  Hence 
in  every  labouring  and  heavy-laden  man  the  consciousness 
of  outward  pressure  must  be  accompanied  by  a  corresponding 
consciousness  of  inward  feebleness.  He  is  one  who  not  only 
knows  the  evils  of  life  as  they  are,  but  one  who  knows  hiTn- 
self  as  he  is;  one  who  has  obtained  self-knowledge  in  the 
only  way  it  can  be  obtained — that  is,  by  laying  self-conceit 
aside  ;  one  who,  having  searched  and  tried  himself  honestly, 


REST    IN    CHRIST.  159 

has  been  brought  to  feel  that  if  left  to  himself  in  any  instance 
he  will  fail,  whether  what  is  required  of  him  be  endurance 
or  performance.  It  is  only  to  those  who  have  come  to  this 
humbling  conclusion  that  Christ  addresses  His  invitation.  He 
will  only  deal  with  us  as  what  we  are,  not  as  what  we  in  our 
false  pride  and  foolish  self-reliance  fancy  ourselves  to  be.  He 
will  not  begin  His  work  in  us  by  delusion  and  flattery,  but 
demands  that  we  renounce,  at  the  very  outset,  our  own  wisdom 
and  strength,  our  own  will  and  self-love,  as  folly  and  weak- 
ness, and  resign  ourselves  wholly  to  Himself ;  that  we  place 
no  trust  in  our  own  unaided  powers  either  to  accomplish  duty 
or  sustain  trial,  but  recognise  that  apart  from  His  help,  His 
grace,  we  must  remain  fettered  by  the  bonds  and  crushed  by 
the  weisrht  of  miserv  and  sin. 

We  have  seen,  then,  who  the  "  labouring  and  heavy  laden  " 
are.  To  them  Christ  says,  "  Come  unto  Me."  This  is  what 
they  need ;  what  will  give  them  the  relief,  the  rest,  which 
they  feel  themselves  so  much  to  require.  "  Come  unto  Me," — 
What  does  that  mean  ?  Of  course,  it  does  not  mean  any  mere 
bodily  approach.  That  is  not  possible,  nor  would  it  avail  if 
it  were.  It  is  not  with  our  limbs  and  feet,  but  with  our 
minds  and  hearts — with  our  reasons,  our  affections,  our  wills — 
that  we  have  to  draw  near  to  Christ.  To  "Come  to  Christ," 
in  fact,  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  to  become  a  true  Chris- 
tian.    What,  then,  does  that  imply  ? 

Well,  it  implies,  for  one  thing,  some  knowledge  of  who 
Christ  was,  and  of  what  He  taught,  and  suffered,  and  aimed 
at,  and  accomplished — some  knowledge  of  the  facts,  the  truths, 
which  constitute  the  Gospel.  I  venture  not  to  try  to  define 
how  much  knowledge  there  must  be.  That  is  a  foolish  task 
many  have  laboured  at,  distributing  all  the  truths  of  the 
Gospel  under  the  two  heads  of  essential  and  non-essential. 
I  think  very  little  of  these  labours  and  of  the  distinction 
upon  which  they  proceed.  But  while  we  may  doubt  or  even 
deny  that  there  is  any  fixed  amount  of  knowledge,  any  in- 
variable number  of  truths,  essential  to  all,  without  respect  of 
persons  or  circumstances,  there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt 
that  some  knowledge — it  may  be  very  different  for  different 


160  REST    IN    CHRIST. 

men — is  essential  to  Christian  belief.  Wherever  we  are  bound 
to  believe,  we  are  bound  to  have  as  much  knowledge  as  will 
make  our  belief  intelligent,  reasonable.  Belief  we  know  not 
of  what  nor  why  is  not  a  religious  but  an  immoral  state  of 
mind.  There  is  no  coming  to  Christ  possible,  then,  except 
through  knowledge  of  what  God's  Word  tells  about  Him. 
It  is  true  that  this  knowledge,  this  mere  head-knowledge,  is 
no  more  than  a  condition  implied  in  coming  unto  Him,  but 
it  is  nevertheless  an  essential  condition ;  and  it  is,  I  fear, 
one  not  always  fulfilled  even  in  this  land  of  Bibles,  and 
churches,  and  schools.  There  are  many  grown-up  persons 
of  reputable  character  who  have  been  in  the  habit  of  attending 
church  all  their  days  so  strangely  ignorant  of  the  contents 
of  the  Gospel  records  that  it  is  little  wonder  if  they  do  not 
go  to  Christ,  and  that  it  would  be  a  great  wonder  indeed  if 
having  gone  to  Him  they  could  contentedly  remain  so  ignorant 
of  Him  as  they  are.  We  cannot  be  in  the  way  of  going  to 
Christ  if  knowledge  about  Him  be  indifferent  to  us. 

Besides  knowledge,  however,  the  coming  to  Christ  involves 
the  recognition  of  His  supreme  importance  to  us.  It  is  neces- 
sary that  all  who  come  unto  Him  realise  their  need  of  Him ; 
realise  that  apart  from  Him  they  are  undone  ;  that  neither 
in  themselves  nor  elsewhere,  save  only  in  a  crucified  Redeemer, 
is  there  the  light,  and  help,  and  safety  which  they  need.  It 
is  necessary  that  they  recognise  that  He  alone  has  fully 
disclosed  what  must  be  the  true  character  of  God  as  a  Father, 
perfectly  holy  yet  infinitely  loving ;  what  ought  to  be  the 
true  character  of  men,  as  sons  of  God,  spiritual  and  immortal 
beings ;  what  is  the  true  relationship  of  God  to  man  and  of 
man  to  God ;  and  how  man  should  feel  and  act  towards  his 
brother-men ;  in  a  word,  that  He  alone  has  clearly  made 
known  the  truth  on  momentous  matters  compared  with  which 
the  grandest  results  of  science  are  as  the  dust  of  the  highways 
contrasted  with  whatever  is  of  most  value  among  men.  It 
is  necessary  that  they  recognise  that  if  what  Christ  is  said 
to  have  suffered  and  done  be  not  true,  there  is  no  certain 
evidence  that  there  may  be  forgiveness  for  the  past,  and 
happiness  for  the  eternal  future ;  that,  apart  from  Him,  sin 
neither  can  be  got  rid  of  nor  holiness  be  established ;  that  the 


REST    IN    CHRIST.  161 

motives  which  Christ's  life  and  death  excite,  and  the  power 
which  the  Holy  Spirit,  one  of  His  gifts,  confers,  are  the  only- 
sources  whence  spiritual  life  can  either  be  derived  or  sustained 
in  corrupt  human  nature. 

It  is  not  enough,  however,  merely  to  recognise  all  this ;  we 
must  further  accept  and  act  on  it;  we  must  acquiesce  in 
heart  and  life  to  the  revelation  He  has  made  of  Himself, 
allowing  the  facts  and  truths  of  it  absolutely  to  prompt  and 
guide  us.  Since  there  is  no  full  light  in  matters  spiritual 
but  His,  we  must  accept  it  and  suffer  Him  to  be  made  wisdom 
unto  us ;  since  God's  mercy  is  only  manifested  to  us  through 
Him,  we  must  not  look  for  mercy  from  any  other  source ; 
since  strength  to  resist  sin  and  perform  duty  is  only  to  be 
found  in  Him,  we  must  seek  to  be  always  animated  by  His 
love  and  sustained  by  His  spirit.  We  must  not  stop  short 
of  this  submission  of  will  and  affection,  and  obedience  of  life 
to  Him,  for  we  cannot  come  unto  Him  by  mere  knowledge 
or  mere  belief,  but  must  sincerely  accept  of  Him  as  our 
wisdom,  righteousness,  sanctification,  and  redemption,  not 
separating  what  God  has  joined  together,  not  supposing  that 
we  can  be  in  Him  unless  He  be  also  in  us.  Salvation  has 
two  aspects,  but  is  not  two  things.  Christ  is  the  whole  of 
salvation.  We  in  Him,  this  is  our  justification ;  He  in  us, 
this  is  our  sanctification;  we  in  Him  and  He  in  us,  this  is 
perfect  redemption;  and  he  who  comes  to  Christ  at  all  must 
receive  Him  as  a  perfect  redemption — as  not  only  eternal 
life  for  him,  but  a  present  life  in  Him. 

Thus  Christ  is  come  to. 

We  have  now  to  consider  what  Christ  promises  to  those  who 
come  unto  Him.  He  says  He  will  give  them  "rest."  What 
are  we  to  understand  by  that  ?  Text  and  context  both  make 
clear  what  it  is.  It  is  rest  from  labour  and  heaviness — rest 
not  from  work,  but  from  what  makes  work  painful  and  toil- 
some. Rest  from  work  is  inactivity,  which  God  never  made 
man  for,  and  which,  instead  of  conferring  happiness  on  him, 
would  make  his  life  intolerable.  The  rest  which  Christ  offers 
us  is  to  be  found  not  in  the  absolute  abandonment  of  work, 
but  in  the  doing  of  His  work.     "  Take  My  yoke  upon  you,  and 

L 


162  REST    IN    CHRIST. 

learn  of  Me ;  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart :  and  ye  shall 
find  rest  to  your  souls."  Come  to  Me  and  follow  Me  ;  imitate 
My  example,  bear  whatever  God  lays  on  you  in  the  same  spirit 
as  I  do,  not  proudly,  not  impatiently,  but  humbly  and  lovingly  : 
do  this,  and  you  will  get  rest.  Look  to  Me ;  learn  of  Me.  I 
have  many  burdens  to  bear,  none  ever  had  burdens  so  many  or 
so  heavy,  yet,  amidst  them  all,  beneath  them  all,  I  have  rest — 
true,  sure,  eternal ;  carry  your  burdens  in  the  same  way,  and 
you  will  enjoy  the  same  rest.  That  was  what  Christ  said ; 
rest  not  from  work,  but  in  work,  was  what  He  promised. 
It  is  a  rest  like  that  which  God,  Christ,  and  the  angels  have, 
who  are  ever  working,  and  yet  ever  resting.  It  is  not  the 
merely  negative  rest  of  inaction,  but  the  positive  rest  which 
flows  from  the  free  and  orderly  exercise  of  the  faculties  and 
the  satisfaction  of  the  desires.  It  is  exemption,  indeed,  from 
the  pain  of  work,  from  labour  and  heaviness,  from  what  makes 
work  a  burden,  from  more  work  than  our  strength  vdll  stand, 
or  work  of  such  a  nature  that  our  will  and  feelings  revolt 
against  it ;  but  it  is  enjoyment  as  well,  and  enjoyment  of  the 
deepest  and  purest  kind.  He  who  has  it  is  not  so  much  secured 
against  burdens  and  sorrows  as  put  in  possession  of  a  strength 
by  which  burdens  are  made  light,  of  a  secret  by  which  sorrow 
is  made  to  yield  joy,  as  to  the  hero  of  old  out  of  the  eater  came 
forth  meat,  and  out  of  the  strong  came  forth  sweetness.  This 
rest  can  be  had  in  Christ  by  coming  to  Him,  as  has  been 
described,  and  abiding  in  Him,  but  from  no  other  source  and 
in  no  other  way  can  it  be  had.  Christ  gives  with  loving  heart 
and  bounteous  hand  to  every  labouring  and  heavy-laden  soul 
that  comes  to  Him  "  rest " — the  beginnings  of  it  in  this  life, 
the  fulness  of  it  in  the  future  life.  Let  me  show  briefly  that 
He  does  so. 

The  sense  of  weariness  and  heaviness  of  soul  was  referred 
to  four  causes — to  affliction,  to  disappointed  desires,  to  guilt, 
to  sin.  What,  then,  does  Christ  do  for  His  people  in  regard 
to  each  of  these  ?  Afflictions,  we  are  all  aware,  He  does  not 
exempt  them  from  so  long  as  they  are  in  this  present  world. 
While  here  rest  from  affliction,  in  the  sense  of  absence  of 
affliction,  it  is  contrary  to  His  plan,  contrary  both  to  His  good- 
ness  and    His  wisdom,  to   grant   them.      He  will  fulfil  His 


REST   IN   CHRIST.  163 

promise  in  that  sense  also  when  they  shall  have  entered  into 
the  perfect  rest  of  heaven.  There  He  shall  "wipe  away  all 
tears  from  their  eyes  ;  and  there  shall  be  no  more  death,  neither 
sorrow,  nor  crying ;  neither  shall  there  be  any  more  pain :  for 
the  former  things  are  passed  away."  But  until  the  former 
things  have  passed  away,  and  especially  until  sin  has  passed 
away,  sorrow  must  be,  affliction  is  needed  and  good.  Believers 
have,  accordingly,  their  share  of  all  the  ordinary  ills  that  flesh 
is  heir  to,  and  they  have  sorrows  even  peculiar  to  themselves. 
The  Gospel,  when  it  enters  into  a  heart,  brings  with  it  sorrows 
as  well  as  joys  not  previously  experienced.  It  deadens  none 
of  the  sensibilities  to  suffering — it  quickens  those  that  are 
moral.  True,  it  is  not  the  cause  but  the  occasion  of  these  new 
griefs ;  sin  in  ourselves  or  others,  sin  seen  as  it  never  was 
before,  is  the  true  cause ;  yet  if  there  had  been  no  spiritual 
life  there  would  have  been,  of  course,  no  spiritual  pain,  and 
spiritual  pain  is  not  pleasant  but  painful,  yea,  of  all  pain  the 
most  painful.  The  Gospel  is  not  the  source  of  moral  grief, 
but  it  unlocks  it,  opens  it  up,  and  lets  its  waters  flow  forth. 
But  notwithstanding  all  this,  Christ  gives,  even  in  regard  to 
affliction,  to  those  who  come  to  Him,  much  rest  in  this  present 
world.  His  own  life  of  suffering,  and  His  teaching  about 
suffering,  and  the  strength  of  the  Holy  Spirit  which  He  has 
obtained  to  enable  suffering  to  be  rightly  borne,  have  altogether 
changed  the  character  of  suffering  for  those  who  love  Him. 
He  has  been  careful  not  to  destroy  it,  but  He  has  converted 
the  evil  of  it  into  good.  He  has  rendered  it  precious,  so  that 
its  preservation  to  believers  is  one  of  the  mercies  of  God.  He 
has,  by  His  example,  doctrine,  and  spirit,  enabled  them  to 
glory  in  affliction,  and  to  count  it,  even  when  most  severe,  "all 
joy  " — pure  joy,  nothing  but  joy.  He  has,  in  a  word,  given 
them  in  affliction  a  rest,  a  positive  satisfaction,  which  physical 
pain  or  mental  sorrow  cannot  reach  either  to  disturb  or  to 
destroy,  ^and  which  may  be  great  in  proportion  to  the  very 
intensity  of  the  pain  and  sorrow. 

Again,  Christ  gives  those  who  come  to  Him  rest  from  all 
those  desires  which,  being  doomed  inevitably  to  disappoint- 
ment, exhaust  the  strength  and  ruin  the  happiness  of  the  soul. 
There  is  no  adequate  satisfaction  for  the  heart  in  any  created 


164  REST    IN    CHRIST. 

object.     It  has  been  made  to  find  its  rest  in  the  Creator,  and 
must  be  restless  until  it  rest  in  Him,  which  it  can  only  do 
through  Christ,  the  union  between  the  Father  and  the  Son 
being  so  intimate  that  no  man  can  come  unto   the   Father 
except  through  the  Son.     When  our  desires,  however,  are  all 
centred  in  Christ,  and  other  things  are  cared  for  and  followed 
after  only  in  accordance  with  His  will,  and  in  the  measure  that 
the  supreme  affection  due  to  Him  allows,  then  the  soul  enjoys 
rest ;  not  the  rest  which  results  from  the  absence  of  desire  (for 
that  is  the  rest  of  death),  but  the  rest  which  results  from  the 
full  and  legitimate  satisfaction  of  desire,  which  is  the  rest  of 
life  in  its  utmost  vigour.      Before  the  Fall  man  was  happy, 
because  he  desired  only  what  he  needed,  and  obtained  all  that 
he  desired.     Since  the  Fall  man  has  been  unhappy,  because 
what  he  needed  he  has  not  desired,  and  what  he  did  not  need 
he  has  desired.      Sin  has  broken  up  the  proper  connection 
between  our  desires  and  our  wants.     Christ  restores  it :  He 
leads  us  through  the  effectual  working  of  His  Spirit  to  seek 
everything    in    Himself,    everything    in    conformity   to    His 
righteous  will,  and  then  bestows  on  us  everything  we  seek : 
He  makes  every  desire  the  expression  of  a  real  want,  and  then 
gratifies  every  desire.    He  thus  delivers  us  from  the  restlessness 
which  perverse  desires  must  ever  produce,  and  gives  us  the  rest 
which  the  satisfaction  of  legitimate  desires  must  ever  produce. 
Again,  Christ  removes  from  conscience  the  awful  load  of 
guilt.     You  remember  how  in  "Pilgrim's  Progress"  it  is  only 
when  Christian  comes  up  to  the  cross  that  his  burden  loosens 
from  off  his  shoulders,  and  falls  from  off  his  back,  and  dis- 
appears in  the  sepulchre  standing  open  a  little  below.     Ah ! 
John  Bunyan,   "the  Jerusalem  sinner  saved,"  knew  well  the 
truth  of  that  part  of  his  wondrous  dream.     The  sacrifice  of 
Christ  can  alone  give  us  assurance  of  the  Divine  forgiveness. 
We  may  doubt  every  other  evidence  of  God's  readiness  to  show 
mercy  and  grace  to  sinners,  but  there  is  no  arguing  against  it 
possible  in  presence  of  the  fact  that  He  has  given  His  own 
Son  even  unto  death  for  us.     Dull,  indeed,  must  be  the  mind, 
and  hard  the  heart,  that  can  resist  that.     Oh  my  friends,  let  us 
not  dare  to  think  God  cannot  love  us,  great  although  our  guilt 
may  be ;  for  look  to  Calvary,  and  behold  there  how  He  does 


REST   IN   CHRIST.  165 

love  us — behold  there,  in  those  death-agonies  of  Jesus  which 
were  the  climax  and  completion  of  a  life  of  self-denial  and 
suffering,  a  proof  of  God's  forgiving  love  towards  us,  before 
which  doubt  is  at  once  irrational  and  profane.  Christ's  death, 
apprehended  by  faith,  severs  the  ties  that  bind  our  guilt  upon 
us  as  a  burden  which  exhausts  the  strength,  extinguishes  hope, 
and  destroys  happiness ;  and  our  souls  are  able  to  rise  up  in 
joyous  consciousness  that  the  light  of  God's  reconciled  counte- 
nance shines  upon  them  with  the  might  of  a  new  life.  They  find 
rest — rest  from  the  burden  of  unforgiven  guilt. 

Finally,  Christ  gives  all  who  come  to  Him  rest  from  the 
power  of  sin.  He  gradually  overcomes  and  destroys  it  in 
them,  replacing  it  with  true  holiness.  The  more  they  live  in 
the  contemplation  of  His  character  and  in  dependence  on  His 
Spirit,  the  more  deeply  they  enjoy  this  rest  from  sin,  this  sweet 
rest  of  holiness.  They  experience  more  and  more  the  sufficiency 
of  Divine  grace  to  regulate  their  nature  and  conduct,  and  as 
evil  grows  feebler  within  them,  and  their  affections  come  to 
cling  more  exclusively  and  closely  to  God,  the  peace  and  joy 
of  the  spiritual  life  widen  and  deepen  into  the  great  sea  of 
heavenly  blessedness,  where  all  is  calm  because  all  is  holy,  where 
rest  is  unbroken,  where  rolls  no  wave  of  sin  or  any  trouble. 

Will  you  come?  Will  you  hearken  to  the  invitation  of  Him 
whom  God  hath  sent  to  save  you — whose  own  most  earnest 
desire  is  to  save  you  ?  God  grant  that  you  do.  Life  and  death 
— the  rest  of  heaven  and  the  unrest  of  hell — are  set  before  you. 
Make  your  choice,  as  men  and  women  on  whom  God  has  con- 
ferred the  gift  of  reason,  and  having  made  your  choice,  act  on 
it  to  the  end,  as  well  aware  how  great  will  be  the  recompense 
of  reward.  Meekly  suffer  and  nobly  strive  as  Jesus  has  shown 
you  how  to  do,  and 

"  Soon  shalt  thou  fight  and  bleed  no  more, 
Soon,  soon  thy  weary  course  be  o'er, 
And  deep  the  rest  thou  then  shalt  take." 


XIV. 
SUPREME   LOVE   DUE  TO   CHRIST. 

"He  that  loveth  father  and  mother  more  than  Me  is  not  worthy  of  Me  ;  and 
he  that  loveth  son  and  daughter  more  than  Me  is  not  worthy  of  Me." — 
Matthew  x.  37. 

THE  meaning  of  these  words  is  obvious.  Christ  tells  us  by 
them  that  He  claims  our  affections  in  a  supreme  degree ; 
that  we  are  not  to  love  any  creature,  even  among  those  whom 
it  is  most  natural  for  us  to  love,  as  we  love  Him  ;  that  if  our 
love  to  Him  be  not  stronger  and  deeper  than  our  love  to  what- 
ever else  is  dear  to  us  on  earth,  it  is  a  love  unworthy  of  its 
object.  If  Christ  could  approve  of  our  loving  any  creature 
more  than  Himself  it  would  be  the  loving  our  parents  and 
children  more. 

He  had  felt  as  child  and  youth  and  man  what  a  blessed  and 
precious  thing  it  was  to  have  a  mother's  love ;  and  He  had  a 
true  son's  love  to  His  mother ;  and  one  of  the  last  things  which 
He  did  as  He  hung  upon  the  cross  was  to  entrust  His  mother 
to  the  care  of  one  who  He  knew  would  watch  over  her  in  her 
declining  years  with  all  sympathy  and  affection.  He  who  took 
the  little  children  up  into  His  arms  and  blessed  them,  who  raised 
from  the  dead  the  son  of  the  widow  of  Nain  and  the  daughter 
of  Jairus,  did  not  undervalue  the  feelings  of  a  parent's  heart. 
He  demands,  however,  distinctly — here  in  my  text — to  be 
loved  with  a  higher  love  than  is  to  be  given  to  any  other 
person  or  thing  whatever.  "  Father  and  mother,"  "  son  and 
daughter,"  are  mentioned  for  the  very  purpose  of  showing  that 
He  cannot  tolerate  the  usurpation  by  any  creature  of  that  place 
in  our  affections  which  is  rightfully  due  to  Himself.  Parents 
and  children, — there  is  nothing  nearer  to  human  beings,  nothing 
made  by  nature  dearer  to  them,  than  these,  and  yet  Christ 
cannot  accept  our  love  as  a  true  and  proper  love  if  we  do  not 
love  Him  more  than  we  do  even  them.     Of  course,  if  these,  the 


SUPREME    LOVE    DUE    TO    CHRIST.  167 

natural  objects  of  our  tenderest  human  affections,  may  not  be 
rightfully  put  into  competition  with  Him,  far  less  may  such 
things  as  silver  and  gold,  selfish  pleasures,  or  worldly  vanities 
and  distinctions. 

This  truth — this  condition  of  the  Christian  life — St  Luke  re- 
presents our  Lord  as  having  expressed  in  a  still  stronger  form. 
"There  went,"  he  says,  "great  multitudes  unto  Jesus,  and  He 
turned  and  said  unto  them,  If  any  man  come  to  Me  and  hate 
not  his  father  and  mother  and  wife  and  children,  and  brethren 
and  sisters,  yea  and  his  own  life  also,  he  cannot  be  My  disciple." 
These  words  may  well  arrest  attention.  No  one  can  for  a 
moment  suppose  that  Christ  requires  His  followers  actually  to 
hate  either  their  relatives  or  their  own  lives.  But  He  must 
manifestly  have  had  a  purpose  in  speaking  as  if  He  did.  To 
say  that  He  adopted  a  Hebrew  form  of  expression  which  just 
meant  to  love  less  may  be  perfectly  true.  The  Hebrews  them- 
selves, however,  must  have  had  a  reason  for  speaking  in  that 
way,  when  they  did  so  speak ;  and  Jesus  must  have  adopted 
that  form  of  speaking  because  He  wished  to  convey  the  shade 
of  meaning  which  alone  could  justify  it. 

What  that  was  it  is  not  difficult  to  perceive.  He  evidently 
wished  to  teach  that  He  must  have  from  His  followers  a  devo- 
tion and  affection  which  no  creature  might  share ;  that  He 
must  rule  in  their  hearts  with  an  undivided,  undisputed  love ; 
that  even  parental  love,  and  filial  love,  and  conjugal  love,  and 
the  love  of  life,  if  compared  with  love  to  Him,  may  be  called 
hatred.  This  is  the  truth  which  He  laid  down  on  the  occasion 
and  in  the  words  referred  to  by  St  Luke,  and  substantially  also 
in  the  text.     Let  us  endeavour  to  realise  what  it  implies. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  the  demand  of  Christ  clearly  means 
that  He  believed  Himself  entitled  to  ask  from  men  a  love  and 
homage  such  as  God,  and  God  alone,  had  hitherto  claimed  from 
them.  I  do  not  see  how  we  can  reasonably  doubt  that  Christ 
actually  used  the  words  which  St  Matthew  and  St  Luke  report 
Him  to  have  used.  I  cannot  conceive  how  such  words  could  ever 
have  come  to  be  attributed  to  Him  if  He  had  not  really  em- 
ployed them.  No  prophet  had  ever  put  forth  such  a  claim. 
No  other  founder  or  reformer  of  religion  has  ever  done  so. 
The  claim  is  without  a  parallel.     And  yet  He  who  made  it 


168  SUPREME    LOVE    DUE    TO    CHRIST. 

inculcated  humility  and  reverence  towards  God  more  earnestly 
and  more  effectively  than  any  one  else  has  ever  done.  He 
showed  a  love  for  the  Eternal  Father,  a  continuous  sense  of 
His  presence  and  favour,  an  earnestness  of  desire  to  do  His 
will,  and  a  zeal  for  His  glory  which  are  also  without  a  parallel. 
Yet  He  obviously  thought  it  nothing  derogatory  to  the  Father's 
honour,  no  robbery  of  what  was  due  to  Him,  to  claim  from 
man  an  equal  love,  to  make  Himself  in  that  respect  at  least 
equal  with  God.  How  could  He  have  done  so  if  He  had  been 
a  mere  man  ?  How  could  He  if  He  had  not  been  conscious  of 
a  unique  relationship  to,  an  essential  oneness  with,  the  Father, 
of  such  an  identity  with  the  Father,  that  what  was  given  to 
Him  was  given  to  the  Father  also  ? 

This  text,  then,  is  one  of  very  many  in  the  Gospels  which 
directly  suggest  the  question,  What  think  ye  of  Christ?  and 
which  at  the  same  time  indicates  that  the  only  right  answer  to 
the  question  is  that  which  St  Peter  gave,  "  Thou  art  the  Son 
of  the  living  God." 

I  remark,  in  the  next  place,  that  Christ  in  making  this 
demand  upon  us  was  revealing  God  to  us.  He  was  giving 
expression  to  God's  feelings  towards  us.  He  was  presenting 
the  Divine  character  to  us  in  one  of  its  most  impressive  aspects. 
Was  not  the  first  and  great  commandment  given  by  God  to  the 
Israelites  that  they  should  love  Him  with  all  their  heart  and 
strength  and  soul  and  might  ?  Did  He  not  expressly  declare 
Himself  through  Moses  to  be  a  "  jealous  God,  visiting  the 
iniquity  of  the  fathers  upon  the  children  unto  the  third  and 
fourth  generation  of  them  that  hate  Him,  and  showing  mercy 
unto  thousands  of  them  that  love  Him  and  keep  His  com- 
mandments "  ?  Do  not  all  the  prophets  repi'esent  God  as  jealous 
lest  men  do  not  love  Him  enough  ?  Do  they  not  represent 
Him  as  actually  beseeching  men  to  love  Him,  as  indignantly 
expostulating  with  them  for  not  loving  Him  or  loving  Him  so 
little,  as  threatening  them  and  punishing  them  for  their  lack 
of  love  to  Him  ? 

The  fact  that  they  do  this  to  the  extent  which  every  reader 
of  them  is  aware  of  is  the  ground  of  the  commonest  objection 
made  to  the  view  which  is  given  us  of  God  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment.    It  is  said  that  it  is  an  unworthy  view  of  Him  ;  that 


SUPREME    LOVE    DUE    TO    CHRIST.  169 

those  ancient  Jews  conceived  of  God  as  far  too  like  themselves, 
— angry,  jealous,  jBerce ;  that  Christ  gave  a  very  different  re- 
presentation of  God,  one  quite  inconsistent  with  the  threaten- 
ings  and  terrors  and  judgments  of  which  the  Hebrew  Scriptures 
tell  us  so  much. 

I  answer  that  the  anger,  jealousy,  fierceness,  the  threatenings, 
terrors,  and  judgments  of  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament  were 
simply  the  expressions  and  consequences  of  His  Infinite  Love 
seeking  the  supreme  love  of  man,  and  incapable  of  being  satis- 
fied with  less ;  and  that  Christ  when  He  said,  "  He  that  loveth 
father  and  mother  more  than  Me  is  not  worthy  of  Me  ;  and  he 
that  loveth  son  and  daughter  more  than  Me  is  not  worthy  of 
Me,"  "If  any  man  come  to  Me  and  hate  not  his  father  and 
mother,  and  wife  and  children,  and  brethren  and  sisters,  yea 
and  his  own  life  also,  he  cannot  be  My  disciple,"  was  simply 
revealing  to  us  perfectly  that  in  God's  character  which  explains 
and  harmonises  all  that  is  objected  to  in  Moses  and  the  prophets. 
Let  men  talk  as  they  will,  if  we  only  listen  to  Christ's  own  de- 
mands upon  us,  we  must  acknowledge  that  He  is  "  the  express 
image  "  of  the  "jealous  God  "  of  the  Old  Testament ;  that  the 
central  all-comprehensive  claim  of  the  one  is  that  of  the  other ; 
that  in  both  there  is  the  same  desire  for  the  love  of  the  human 
heart,  the  same  jealousy  of  that  love  not  being  given,  the  same 
intolerance,  if  I  may  so  speak,  where  that  love  is  not  given. 

The  question  at  once  arises,  What  are  we  to  think  of  this 
representation  of  God's  character  ?  Are  we  to  receive  or  reject 
it  ?  Are  we  to  be  ashamed  of  it  or  to  glory  in  it  ?  The 
answer  is  not  difficult,  not  doubtful.  That  the  God  revealed 
to  us  by  Moses  and  the  prophets,  and  last  of  all,  and  far  most 
perfectly  of  all,  by  Jesus  Christ,  is  jealous  lest  we  love  parent 
or  child,  pleasure  or  fortune,  good  name  or  life,  as  much  or 
more  than  we  love  Him,  is  indeed  a  solemn  and  even  a  terrible 
truth,  but  surely  it  is  still  more  a  blessed  and  a  gladsome  truth. 
There  is  no  doubt,  I  admit,  that  it  was  the  reason,  the  explana- 
tion, of  a  multitude  of  words  and  acts  recorded  in  the  Bible  of 
the  most  unpleasant  kind  ;  there  is  no  doubt  either  that  it  has 
been  equally  the  reason,  the  explanation,  of  a  large  proportion 
of  the  painful  events  which  have  happened  in  history,  and  of 
what  has  been  most  bitter  and  grievous  in  the  individual  ex- 


IVO  SUPREME    LOVE    DUE    TO    CHRIST. 

perience  of  all  of  us;  but  take  it  away,  and  what  would  the 
Bible,  or  history,  or  individual  life  be  ?  Why,  without  it  there 
would  have  been  no  Bible,  for  a  God  not  jealous  for  our  love 
would  never  have  revealed  Himself  to  us  in  redemption  ;  with- 
out it,  humanity  would  have  had  no  Heavenly  Father,  and  all 
our  lives  would  have  been  comparatively  loveless. 

There  are  some,  who  fancy  themselves  to  be  wise,  who  ask 
us  to  substitute  for  the  God  revealed  in  the  written  word  and 
in  the  Incarnate  Word  a  God  whom  they  represent  as  the 
Pure  or  Absolute  Idea,  or  as  an  Unconscious  Will,  or  as  the 
Unknowable,  or  as  a  Stream  of  Tendency,  or  as  Collective 
Humanity ;  but  clearly  so  long  as  we  give  either  our  reasons 
or  our  affections  fair  play,  we  cannot  hesitate  between  such 
thoughtless  and  heartless  representations  of  God  as  these  and 
the  manifestation  of  Him  in  Christ  as  the  God  whose  love  can 
only  be  satisfied  with  a  higher  love  than  any  we  can  give  to 
father  or  mother,  son  or  daughter.  We  cannot  hesitate  between 
such  mere  idols  of  the  brain,  and  the  true,  the  living,  and  the 
loving  God, 

The  thought  of  God  as  not  only  an  Infinite  Living  Person, 
but  as  one  who  greatly  loves  us,  is  surely  a  most  blessed  and 
comforting  thought,  yea,  the  most  blessed  and  comforting  of 
all  thoughts.  It  can  contribute  to  no  human  being's  happiness 
to  believe  that  God  is  indifferent  to  his  happiness,  cares  abso- 
lutely nothing  for  him,  has  no  love  for  him  ;  while  he  who  has 
faith  in  the  love  of  God  towards  him  may  with  strong  heart 
dare  and  endure  all  things,  and  rejoice  through  all  tribulations. 

Here,  however,  some  one  may  perhaps  think,  Yes,  I  should 
certainly  wish  God  to  love  me,  but  I  should  wish  also  that  His 
love  had  no  jealousy  in  it;  that  He  did  not  heed  whether  I 
gave  Him  my  heart  or  not ;  that  my  love  to  Him  had  no  effect 
on  His  love  to  me ;  that  He  blessed  me  all  the  same  whether  I 
loved  Him  or  did  not,  whether  I  loved  Him  much  or  little. 

This  wish,  I  imagine,  many  cherish,  although,  of  course,  only 
in  a  vague,  unconscious,  or  half-conscious  way.  But  it  is  an 
obviously  unreasonable  wish ;  it  is  a  wish  even  for  what  is 
absolutely  impossible.  To  love  and  to  be  indifferent  whether 
the  love  be  returned  or  not  are  contrary  states  of  mind.  They 
cannot  go  together ;    the  one  necessarily  excludes  the  other. 


SUPREME    LOVE    DUE    TO    CHRIST.  I7l 

Love,  of  its  very  nature,  as  certainly  seeks  love  in  return  as  fire 
tends  to  burn. 

If  God  had  no  desire  that  we  should  love  Him — were  He  in 
no  way  offended  at  our  not  loving  Him — there  could  be  no 
real  love  in  Him  to  us.  If  His  love  to  us  be  at  once  sincere 
love  and  infinite  love,  He  must  be  unsatisfied  with  less  than 
our  highest  and  strongest  love.  From  this  point  of  view  we 
clearly  see  how  God's  sternest  reproofs,  most  indignant  ex- 
postulations, and  severest  threats  in  Scripture,  as  well  as  His 
most  painful  dispensations  in  Providence,  may  be  regarded  as 
so  many  evidences  of  His  love.  The  stronger  love  is,  the  less 
easily  can  it  content  itself  to  do  without  love.  If  two  strangers 
quarrel  they  simply  separate.  If  two  acquaintances  give  great 
offence  to  each  other  they  pass  one  another  without  the  custo- 
mary recognition.  But  it  is  a  very  different  matter  with,  say, 
a  mother  whose  affections  for  her  son  or  daughter  have  been 
thwarted  and  wounded.  The  mother's  heart  within  her  clings 
to  the  offending  and  unloving  child.  Her  heart  must  have 
love  in  return,  and  it  is  impossible  for  her  calmly  to  resign 
herself  to  live  without  it.  Her  reproaches  spring  from  the  very 
depth  and  strength  of  her  affection,  and  they  are  passionate 
because  it  is  sincere  and  intense. 

So  the  very  vehemence  of  the  Divine  expostulations  and 
reproaches  in  Scripture,  and  the  variety  of  trials  and  afflic- 
tions which  Pro\ddence  assigns  us,  are  signs  of  the  greatness 
of  God's  longing  for  our  love.  If  He  were  indifferent  to 
us,  if  He  loved  us  less,  He  would  not  have  spoken  so  nor 
would  He  act  so.  Along  with  every  wrathful  word  which  He 
addresses  to  us,  we  may  hear  His  voice  also  whispering, 
"  Son,  daughter,  give  Me  thy  heart."  In  every  affliction 
which  He  sends  us,  we  may  feel  His  hand  seeking  to  grasp 
ours  in  reconciliation,  in  mutual  love.  This  representation 
of  God  as  loving  us  and  longing  for  our  love  is  the  glory  of 
our  religion.  Other  religions  set  before  men  gods  who  offer 
little  or  no  affection  and  are  content  to  receive  little  or  none  ; 
who  demand  a  lip  homage  and  outward  service  but  do  not 
ask  for  the  heart ;  while  the  God  made  known  to  us  through 
Christ  cares  for  nothing  we  can  offer  Him  if  the  heart  itself 
be  withheld. 


172  SUPREME    LOVE    DUE    TO    CHRIST. 

There  is  a  thought  closely  related  to  what  we  have  just  been 
saying.  When  God,  when  Christ,  demands  from  us  a  supreme 
love,  a  love  incomparable  with  any  other  love,  what  is  demanded 
is  not  a  something  which  might  either  have  been  demanded  or 
not,  but  what  could  not  in  reason  or  righteousness  fail  to  be 
demanded.  You  will  remark  that  by  St  Matthew  Christ  is  re- 
ported to  have  said  that  a  man  who  does  not  love  Him  more 
than  father  and  mother,  son  and  daughter,  is  "  not  vjorthy  of 
Him^^ ;  and  by  St  Luke,  that  whoever  comes  to  Him  and  does 
not  hate  father  and  mother,  wife  and  children,  brethren  and 
sisters,  and  life  itself,  "cannot  he  His  disciple."  That  ^^  not 
worthy"  and  "cannot  he"  tell  us  the  same  thing,  viz.  that  this 
claim  on  our  love  which  Christ  as  the  express  image  of  the 
person  of  God  makes  upon  us  is  no  arbitrary  claim,  but  one 
which  has  its  reason  in  the  very  nature  of  our  relation  to  Him. 
If  we  do  not  thus  love  God  we  are  simply  not  His  children, 
and  nothing  which  God  could  do  for  us  would  make  us,  so 
long  as  we  are  in  that  state,  His  children.  To  have  such  love 
is  to  be  His  children.  If  we  do  not  thus  love  Christ  we  have 
not  that  kind  of  character  which  constitutes  worthiness  of  Him, 
which  makes  a  man  Christ's  disciple. 

The  jealousy  of  God  is  an  aspect  of  His  righteousness  as 
well  as  of  His  love.  We  are  apt  to  associate  injustice  with 
jealousy ;  to  conceive  of  it  as  a  suspiciousness,  which  is  un- 
warranted, that  we  are  not  loved  enough,  or  that  love  to  which 
we  have  a  right  is  given  to  others.  A  great  deal  of  human 
jealousy  is  of  this  kind,  but  not  all  of  it.  The  jealousy  of  a 
mother  that  a  son  or  daughter  should  act  less  wisely  or  worthily 
than  he  or  she  ought  to  do  is  often  a  most  reasonable,  righteous, 
and  sacred  feeling,  St  Paul  was  nobly  jealous  with  what  the 
Bible  calls  a  "  godly  jealousy  " 

God  can  only  entertain  a  godly  jealousy ;  and  when  He  is 
jealous  lest  we  do  not  love  Him  above  all  things  else,  it  is 
because  not  to  love  the  Creator  above  the  creature,  not  to  love 
supreme  excellence  supremely,  not  to  love  perfectly,  or  with 
the  whole  heart,  perfect  Truth,  perfect  Beauty,  perfect  Good- 
ness, not  to  love  most  Him  who  has  loved  us  most  and  done 
and  suffered  most  for  us,  is,  in  its  own  nature,  utterly  perverse. 
It  never  can  be  right  to  love  least  what  is  most  lovable  or 


SUPREME    LOVE    DUE    TO    CHRIST.  173 

to  love  most  what  is  least  lovable.  It  never  can  be  right 
to  prefer  the  lower  to  the  higher,  the  worse  to  the  better. 
We  can  do  that,  and  alas !  we  often  do  it.  But  God  cannot 
do  it;  Christ  cannot  do  it;  and  they  can  never  approve  of 
our  doing  it.  There  is  no  selfishness,  no  meanness,  in  their 
asking  from  us  our  best  and  deepest  affection,  our  utmost  love  ; 
God  as  absolutely  good,  Christ  as  the  embodiment  of  infinite 
love,  could  not  seek  from  us  less,  or  be  content  to  receive 
less,  than  the  supreme  devotion  of  our  souls.  The  essential 
righteousness  of  the  Divine  Nature  is  the  ground  of  the  demand 
on  us  to  love  most  the  Highest,  the  only  Infinite  and  Perfect, 
Object  of  love  ;  to  love  everything  else  only  in  subordination 
to  it ;  to  love  nothing  in  competition  with  it. 

Now,  what  is  right  towards  God  never  involves  wrong 
towards  man.  Therefore,  I  remark  next,  that  the  supreme 
love  due  to  our  God  and  Saviour,  while  it  requires  us  to 
sacrifice  all  love  which  is  incompatible  with  love  to  Him — 
all  love  which  would  put  itself  in  competition  with  love  to 
Him — far  from  weakening  or  injuring  in  any  way  any  true 
love  kept  in  its  true  place,  strengthens  and  fosters  it. 

If  you  make  any  earthly  object,  however  true  and  good  in 
itself,  the  highest  object  of  your  love,  it  will  cease  to  be  true 
and  good  to  you,  and  because  made  an  idol  of  it  will  be 
morally  and  spiritually  ruinous  to  yon.  And,  after  all,  your 
irrational  and  idolatrous  love  of  it  will  probably  not  be  so 
strong  and  will  certainly  not  be  so  pure  as  your  rational  and 
Christian  love  of  it  might  have  been.  He  who  loves  Christ 
more  than  father,  mother,  son,  or  daughter,  yet  loves  father, 
mother,  son,  and  daughter  more  than  he  who  does  not  love 
Christ  most.  Supreme  affection  to  Christ  never  diminishes 
and  lowers,  it  invariably  intensifies  and  exalts,  all  other  legiti- 
mate affections.  If  you  love  what  is  true  and  good  in  sub- 
ordination to  the  love  of  Christ,  His  love  will  not  only  bless 
and  sanctify  your  love  but  will  make  it  deeper,  stronger,  more 
binding,  more  lasting.  It  is  just  the  man  whose  natural  affec- 
tions have  been  expanded  and  developed  through  a  continually 
growing  love  of  God  who  may  be  expected  to  love  his  wife 
better  in  his  old  age  than  in  his  hour  of  prime,  and  his  grand- 
children as  deeply  as  his  first  new-born  babe. 


174  SUPREME    LOVE    DUE    TO    CHRIST. 

It  is  not  on  the  ruins  of  our  other  affections  that  love  to 
God  must  be  raised  but  on  their  summits.  The  more  we 
dwell  in  love  with  those  whom  He  would  have  us  to  love,  the 
more  we  shall  be  able  to  love  Himself  with  a  still  deeper  and 
truer  love.  While,  on  the  other  hand,  the  more  love  we  bear 
to  Him  the  more  love  we  shall  still  have  to  expend  on  His 
creatures,  and  on  every  good  cause.  The  most  loving  parent, 
the  most  zealous  patriot,  the  most  devoted  philanthropist,  will 
receive  an  increase  of  parental  love,  of  patriotism,  of  philan- 
thropy with  every  increase  of  love  to  God  in  Christ. 

Christ  demanded,  I  have  said,  from  all  His  followers,  and 
from  all  men,  for  all  men  ought  to  be  His  followers,  the 
supreme  love  of  their  hearts,  because  He  could,  from  the 
very  nature  of  things,  demand  no  less.  But  I  need  scarcely 
add  that  this  demand  was  none  the  less  as  gracious  as  it  was 
righteous. 

Supreme  love  to  Christ  is  not  only  what  is  due  to  Christ 
but  is  what  alone  can  give  happiness  to  men.  Christ  is 
perfect,  infinite  love.  He  desires,  therefore,  our  perfect  happi- 
ness, the  highest  happiness  of  which  as  finite  beings  we  are 
capable ;  and  this  implies  our  loving  Him  above  all  other 
beings,  and  with  our  whole  hearts.  It  is  only  on  this  condi- 
tion that  we  can  have  the  happiness  which  He  wishes  us  to 
possess,  and  which  He  died  on  the  cross  to  procure  for  us. 
It  is  only  through  the  complete  satisfaction  of  a  love  which 
fills  the  whole  soul  that  we  can  be  completely  happy.  The 
mysterious  power  we  possess  of  doubling  our  life,  of  going 
out  of  ourselves  to  live  in  another,  this  mysterious  power  of 
love  is  that  which  can  alone  enable  us  to  taste  of  the  full 
happiness  and  glory  of  existence. 

But  where  on  this  earth  is  such  love  as  the  human  heart 
prays  for  and  longs  for  ?  Where  is  there  on  earth  any 
creature  capable  of  satisfying  our  whole  capacity  of  love  and 
our  whole  desire  of  being  loved,  and  so  filling  with  happiness 
a  heart  which  is  in  misery  when  alone  and  which  is  ever 
seeking,  with  a  perseverance  as  indefatigable  as  unfruitful,  an 
object  to  which  it  may  surrender  itself  with  all  its  affections  ? 

There  is  no  such  creature.  The  excellence  of  the  best  of 
earthly  beings  is  soon  measured ;   the  happiness  it  can  give 


SUPREME    LOVE    DUE    TO    CHRIST.  175 

soon  exhausted.  But  if  we  can  find  on  earth  no  creature  so 
lovable  and  so  loving  as  to  fill  our  hearts,  in  the  presence 
of  our  God  and  Saviour  the  difficulty  is  of  a  quite  contrary- 
character.  We  seek  in  vain  within  ourselves  for  a  heart 
capable  of  containing  the  love  with  which  He  inspires  us  or 
the  happiness  with  which  He  floods  our  souls.  He  has  in- 
finitely more  to  give  than  we  have  desire  to  ask  or  power 
to  receive.  The  love  which  cleaves  to  Him  satisfies  for  time 
and  eternity.  The  poorest  man  is  rich  who  has  it.  The 
richest  man  is  poor  who  has  it  not. 

Oh,  let  us  earnestly  seek,  and  pray,  and  strive  to  have  it. 
We  cannot  take  it  by  our  own  strength ;  we  cannot  obtain  it 
by  our  own  skill.  We  can  do  no  such  feat  as  love  Christ 
supremely  merely  because  we  are  told  to  do  it.  But  He  who 
makes  on  us  the  demand  is  willing  to  give  us  strength  to 
obey  it. 

Let  us  think  of  the  cross  of  our  Saviour  and  the  love  it 
displays.  Let  us  behold  the  opened  arms  of  the  Eternal 
Father.  Let  us  accept  the  offered  help  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
Let  us  use  the  means  of  grace.  Let  us  cherish  what  love  we 
have  and  pray  for  more.  Let  us  keep  steadily  before  us  what 
we  have  to  aim  at  and  press  towards  it  in  humble  dependence 
on  God.  And  let  us  doubt  not  that  a  time  will  come  when  our 
love  will  at  length  be  worthy  of  our  Lord,  when  work  in  His 
service  will  be  no  longer  toil,  when  action  will  be  no  longer 
conscious  of  restraint,  and  existence  will  be  a  perpetual  joy, 
an  everlasting  anthem. 

May  God  bless  what  has  now  been  said,  and  to  His  name  be 
glory  for  ever.     Amen. 


XV. 

A   FAITHFUL   SAYING. 

"This  is  a  faithful  saying,  and  worthy  of  all  acceptation,  that  Christ  Jesus 
came  into  the  world  to  save  sinners." — 1  TiM.  i.  15. 

Or,  perhaps  more  exactly,  "  Faithful  is  the  saying,  and  worthy  of  all  accepta- 
tion, that  Christ  Jesus  came  into  the  world  to  save  sinners." 

AT  the  table  of  the  Lord  this  day  what  Christ  has  done  for 
-^^  us  has  been  shown  forth  to  us  by  sacramental  symbols 
and  actions ;  and  we  have  shown  forth,  it  is  to  be  hoped  with 
sincerity, — we  have  outwardly  professed, — our  faith  in  Him,  and 
love  and  gratitude  to  Him,  for  what  He  has  done.  Let  us  not 
turn  away  our  spirits  now  to  any  lower  or  meaner  theme ;  let 
us  still  for  a  little  make  His  work  for  us,  and  our  indebtedness 
to  Him,  the  object  of  our  thoughts.  The  text  is  well  fitted  to 
help  us  to  do  so.  May  God  bless  it  to  this  end  unto  all  of  us, 
suggesting  to  us  useful  reflections,  and  producing  in  us  salutary 
impressions  by  means  of  it. 

The  saying  that  Christ  Jesus  came  into  the  world  to  save 
sinners  is  not  merely  the  saying  of  the  text.  It  is  the  saying 
of  the  whole  New  Testament.  It  is  the  saying  which  is  the 
consummation  of  the  whole  revelation  of  God.  It  is  the  sub- 
stance of  what  the  whole  Christian  Church  in  all  lands  says. 
It  is  the  saying  which  is  the  very  foundation  and  essence  of  the 
Gospel.  And  just  because  all  this — and  no  mere  sentence  or 
sentiment  even  of  an  Apostle — there  is  all  the  more  meaning, 
force,  and  comfort  in  what  St  Paul  here  declares  of  it. 

This  saying  which  includes  so  much — this  saying  which  is 
God's  great  word  of  salvation — this  saying  which  had  been 
spoken  through  so  many  men,  and  in  so  many  forms,  and, 
above  all,  in  Christ's  own  life  and  death — this  saying  it  is 
which  is  "a  faithful  saying";  a  saying,  in  other  words,  in 
which  we  may  place  the  utmost  confidence ;  about  which  we 
need  "have  no  doubt ;  which  is  beyond  all  reasonable  dispute ; 


A    FAITHFUL    SAYING.  177 

which  is  as  certain  as  it  is  wondrous ;  which  is  the  expression 
of  real  fact,  and  for  which  the  evidence  is  ample,  clear,  and 
strong.  That  is  what  St  Paul  aflirms,  and  his  affirmation  is, 
I  think,  one  which  concerns  us  all  very  closely. 

There  are,  I  am  aware,  not  a  few  nowadays  who  regard  the 
question  of  the  truth  of  the  Gospel  as  of  comparatively  small 
importance,  and  the  duty  of  being  convinced  as  to  its  truth  one 
neither  of  urgent  nor  of  universal  obligation.  It  is  enough, 
they  think,  simply  to  believe  and  practise  it.  Ordinary  people, 
they  say,  have  neither  the  time  nor  the  ability  to  examine  into 
the  grounds  of  their  religion,  and  all  that  can  be  fairly  expected 
of  them  is  merely  that  they  receive  and  act  on  it.  If  they 
believe  and  obey  the  result  will  be  all  the  same  whether  they 
have  reason  for  their  belief  or  not,  or  whether  there  is  any 
reason  to  be  had  for  their  belief  or  not.  Thus  some  represent 
faith  as  quite  distinct  from  reason,  exalt  faith  at  the  expense  of 
reason,  and  disparage  truth  as  less  worth  than  mere  feeling  or 
mere  opinion.  , 

I  can  have  no  symjjathy  with  this  sort  of  thought  and  speech. 
All  our  interests  in  the  Gospel,  it  seems  to  me,  depend  on  its 
being  true.  Its  ideals  and  tendencies  might  be  the  purest  and 
noblest,  but  that  would  not  avail  if  it  were  founded  on  a  delu- 
sion. Our  Lord  never  asked  men  to  believe  on  Him  farther 
than  He  had  given  them  reason  to  believe.  The  Apostles,  it  is 
quite  certain,  wherever  they  went  laboured  first  of  all,  and 
above  all,  to  prove  that  Jesus  was  the  Christ — to  present  such 
evidence  that  those  who  did  not  believe  in  Jesus  as  their  Lord 
and  Saviour  would  be  without  excuse.  The  Gospel  claims  to 
be  accepted  as  the  Truth — God's  own  saving  and  sanctifying 
truth — and  those  only  who  believe  in  it  as  what  they  have 
ascertained  to  be  the  Truth  have  Christian  faith.  Mere  faith 
— blind  faith — is  a  sin  against  the  soul,  and  a  sin  against  God, 
who  has  made  the  soul  to  live  in  and  by  the  truth.  It  is  largely 
because  men  are  content  with  such  faith,  but  do  not  feel  their 
need  of  finding  a  sure  ground  for  it,  that  their  faith  is  the 
feeble  and  inoperative  thing  it  so  often  is.  If  they  got  it  less 
easily,  if  they  would  not  be  content  to  believe  as  true  what  they 
did  not  see  to  be  true,  the  truth  when  once  obtained  would  be 
grasped  by  them  more  firmly,  loved  more  dearly,  and  acted  on 

M 


178  A    FAITHFUL    SAYING. 

more  fully.  The  truth  gives  light  and  life  only  when  the  soul 
intelligently  apprehends  it,  and  lovingly  receives  it.  This  is 
the  blessed  peculiarity  of  the  Gospel,  that  it  is  pure  truth, 
capable  of  standing  the  strictest  scrutiny,  so  that  the  more  you 
test  it  by  your  reason,  the  more  you  verify  it  by  your  conscience 
and  affection,  the  more  you  prove  it  by  application  in  practice, 
the  more  you  examine  its  grounds,  its  evidences,  its  declara- 
tions, the  more  you  honour  it. 

The  saying  that  Christ  came  into  the  world  to  save  sinners, 
Paul  adds,  is  "worthy  of  all  acceptation."  It  is  so,  of  course, 
because  it  is  "  faithful " — of  assured  truth — of  absolute  certainty. 
Were  it  not  thus  faithful  it  would  be  wrong  in  us  to  accept  it. 
But  it  has  other  grounds  than  its  mere  truth  to  our  esteem.  It 
is  not  only  truth,  but  truth  of  vital  moment,  of  unspeakable 
importance.  It  is  the  very  marrow  of  the  Gospel,  summing  up, 
in  one  precious  sentence,  its  great  characteristic  and  its  great 
purpose,  and  whatever  concerns  the  welfare  and  happiness  of  a 
Christian.  It  is  a  declaration  of  what  was  the  central  fact  of 
human  history  and  the  crowning  act  of  Divine  revelation.  It 
announces  to  us  that  which  the  patriarchs  desired,  which  the 
prophets  foretold,  which  the  Apostles  preached, — that  which 
the  types  of  the  ancient  economy  prefigured,  and  which  the 
sacraments  of  the  new  economy  seal.  It  tells  of  pardon  and 
mercy  to  those  who  are  under  the  just  condemnation  of  the 
law ;  of  a  cure  for  spiritual  disease ;  of  freedom  from  the 
slavery  of  sin ;  of  strength  and  grace  for  the  life  that  now  is ; 
of  joy  and  glory  for  the  life  that  is  to  be.  Truly,  then,  it 
is  "  worthy  of  all  acceptation,"  and  it  must  be  the  extreme  of 
folly  not  to  receive  it  with  readiness  and  heartiness.  From 
such  folly  may  God  preserve  us. 

The  saying,  which  is  so  faithful  and  which  ought  to  be  so 
acceptable — the  saying,  "  Christ  came  into  the  world  to  save 
sinners  " — first  states,  you  will  observe,  a  fact,  and  then  tells  us 
the  design  of  that  fact. 

The  fact  is,  "  Christ  came  into  the  worldJ'  That  implies  that 
Christ  was  before  He  came  into  the  world.  Perhaps,  indeed, 
the  expression  in  itself,  apart  from  all  similar  phrases,  torn 
from  the  substance  and  isolated  from  the  analogy  of  Scripture, 
would  not  bind  us  down  to  attach  this  sense  to  it.     But  we 


A    FAITHFUL    SAYING.  179 

must  interpret  it  as  what  it  is,  a  general  expression  of  the 
revelation  of  God  which  centres  in  Christ ;  we  must  look  at  it 
in  the  light  of  other  statements  plainly  kindred  to  it.  The 
Bible,  it  has  been  said,  is  like  the  tabernacle,  where,  in 
accordance  with  a  regulation  of  the  law,  the  lamps  were  to 
be  lighted  by  one  another.  And  manifestly,  if  acting  on  this 
principle,  we  would  light  this  particular  lamp  of  the  glorious 
temple  of  Holy  Scripture,  we  must  allow  to  shine  on  it  such 
passages  as  these  :  "  He  took  not  on  Him  the  nature  of  angels, 
but  He  took  on  Him  the  seed  of  Abraham."  "The  Word 
was  made  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us."  "  I  come  forth  from 
the  Father  and  am  come  into  the  world." 

Christ  came  into  the  world.  He  came  from  the  bosom  of 
the  Father,  where  He  had  from  eternity  been,  the  same  in 
substance,  equal  in  power  and  glory.  "The  Word  was  in  the 
beginning  with  God,  and  the  Word  was  God."  In  giving  us 
Him  God  gave  us  of  His  own  very  self — of  His  own  very  sub- 
stance, His  own  very  life,  His  own  very  character,  His  own 
very  love.  "  God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only 
begotten  Son."  And  Christ,  that  Son,  came;  He  came  from 
God  ;  He  was  God  ;  He  came  "  from  the  bosom  of  the  Father  " 
to  "  show  us  the  Father."  He  came  from  out  the  Infinite  fully 
to  meet  and  satisfy  the  cry  of  the  creature  after  God.  He  came 
"  in  whom  dwelt  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily  "  to  draw  us 
into  a  loving  communion  and  transforming  sympathy  with  God, 
through  revealing  God  to  us  as  just  and  holy,  but  also  as  tender 
and  compassionate,  gracious  and  forgiving.  And  this  He  did 
through  taking  on  Him  the  nature  of  man,  with  all  the  faculties 
and  affections  of  the  body  and  soul  of  man,  with  all  the  natural 
although  none  of  the  sinful  infirmities  of  man.  For  only  through 
such  union  of  the  Divine  and  Human  in  Christ — only  through 
God  coming  thus  out  of  the  Infinite  and  revealing  Himself  in 
the  finite,  by  a  perfect  representative,  an  express  image,  sub- 
ject to  liability  to  pain,  temptation,  and  death,  like  others  of 
mortal  mould,  could  God  and  man,  separated  through  sin,  be 
reconciled. 

Hence  Christ  came  as  man ;  a  Son  revealing  a  Father ;  a 
human  person  imaging  a  Divine  person ;  a  human  brother, 
bound   by   love,   sympathy,  and  suffering   to   all   His  human 


180  A   FAITHFUL    SAYING. 

brethren,  participating  in  their  weaknesses,  bearing  their  sick- 
nesses and  sorrows,  grieving  over  their  sins,  going  before  them 
through  the  death-shade,  and  presenting  that  face  in  which 
shone  the  ineffable  glory  veiled  for  their  sakes  in  mortal  agony 
and  stained  with  human  tears.  Verily,  "  Great  is  the  mystery 
of  godliness,  God  manifest  in  the  flesh " — God  incarnating 
Himself — God,  from  holy  hatred  of  sin  and  ineffable  love  to 
sinners,  despising  not  the  womb  of  a  woman,  shrinking  not 
from  sharing  in  man's  uttermost  misery,  yea,  humbling  Himself 
even  to  the  shame  and  agony  of  that  awful  death  on  Calvary. 

It  is  that  great  mystery  and  yet  most  certain  fact  to  which 
the  Apostle  refers.  How  have  we  regarded  it,  how  have  we 
felt  towards  it  and  dealt  with  it  in  time  past?  Have  the 
injBnite  righteousness  and  infinite  love  disclosed  by  it  been 
responded  to  with  such  admiration  and  love  as  even  our  narrow 
creaturely  hearts  might  well  be  expected  to  show  ?  Or,  have 
we  not  reason  to  mourn  that  it  has  not  been  so,  and  strong 
reason  to  pray  that  in  the  time  to  come  we  may  see  much 
more  clearly,  and  feel  much  more  deeply,  the  meaning  and  the 
glory  of  it  ? 

We  have  thus  noticed  the  fact  stated.  We  have  now  to 
consider  what  was  the  design  of  it.  Why  did  Christ  come  into 
the  world  ?  There  must  have  been  an  adequate  motive  for  a 
procedure  so  strange.  The  text  tells  us  what  that  was.  It 
was  "to  save  sinners."  "Christ  came  into  the  world  to  save 
sinners."  The  words,  you  see,  are  very  plain,  and  they  are 
also  very  comprehensive.  There  are  no  restrictions  made — no 
limitations  drawn.  All  have  sinned,  and  Christ  would  have  all 
to  be  saved.  There  is  no  sinner,  and  therefore  there  is  no  man, 
who  may  not  say,  Christ  came  into  the  world  to  save  me. 
There  is  not  one  person  here  present  who  may  not  feel  con- 
fident that  Christ  left  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  and  toiled, 
suffered,  and  died  on  earth,  for  him,  for  her.  There  is  no  pre- 
sumption in  any  of  you  believing  and  declaring  that  Christ 
died  to  redeem  you.  If  the  Gospel  be  true  at  all  that  is  just  as 
certain  as  that  the  sun  rose  this  morning.  It  is  most  pre- 
sumptuous even  to  imagine  that  Christ  did  not  come  to  save 
you,  or  any  other  sinner,  for  it  is  to  suspect  Christ  and  His 
Apostles  of  having  again  and  again  declared  what  was  false. 


A    FAITHFUL    SAYING.  181 

Whoever  doubts  that  Christ  came  to  save  him,  ought  to  be 
able  to  show  either  that  he  is  not  a  sinner,  or  that  although  a 
sinner  he  is  not  lost.  No  man  can  prove  either  of  these  two 
things  ;  but  a  great  many  men  foolishly  fancy  them  true,  or  at 
least  feel  and  act  as  if  they  were  true.  Many  fail  to  realise 
with  any  clearness  or  depth  that  they  are  sinners.  They  have 
not  awakened  to  the  consciousness  of  what  a  terrible  evil  sin  is. 
Although  poor  they  imagine  themselves  rich  ;  although  diseased 
and  corrupt,  yea  dead,  they  imagine  themselves  sound  and  well, 
and  quite  alive.  They  feel  no  need  of  salvation,  and  therefore 
they  despise  it,  spurn  the  offer  of  it,  dislike  the  very  sound 
of  it. 

Sinners  like  these,  although  they  acknowledge  themselves 
sinners,  do  not  feel  that  they  are  lost,  and  hence  do  not  feel 
their  need  of  Christ  as  a  real  and  present  Saviour.  A  great 
many  people  imagine  that  Christ  came  to  save  them  from  the 
danger  of  being  lost,  came  to  save  them  from  the  consequences 
of  their  sin,  came  to  save  them  from  falling  into  eternal  death, 
came  to  secure  them  a  salvation  to  come — in  other  words,  came 
to  enable  them  to  escape  an  external  future  hell  and  to  open 
up  to  them  an  external  future  heaven. 

This  is  a  most  inadequate  and  inaccurate  view  of  Christ's 
work  and  purpose  in  coming  into  the  world.  It  turns  the 
Gospel  upside  down,  and  makes  it  of  none  effect,  or  of  bad 
effect.  Christ  came  to  save  us  sinners  because  already  lost, 
not  to  save  us  from  the  danger  of  being  lost.  He  did  not  come 
to  do  what  would  have  been  manifestly  unjust,  namely,  to  save 
us  from  the  consequences  of  sin,  otherwise  than  by  saving  us 
from  our  sin  itself.  He  came  to  save  us  from  our  sin ;  deliver- 
ance from  the  consequences  of  sin,  so  far  as  we  are  delivered 
from  sin,  follows  as  a  natural  result.  He  came  to  save  sinners 
by  rescuing  them  out  of  eternal  death,  not  by  preventing  them 
falling  into  it,  i.e.  from  hecoviing  eternally  dead.  Every  one  who 
is  destitute  of  that  life  in  God  which  is  the  only  eternal  life  is 
already  dead,  already  in  the  state  of  eternal  death.  Christ 
came  to  give  an  actual  present  salvation ;  to  deliver  us  from 
the  hell  of  sin  within  us  and  to  fill  us  with  the  heaven  of 
holiness.  Sin  is  the  source  and  substance,  the  fire  and  the 
worm  of  hell,  and  from  it  Christ  would  save  us  now.     Holiness 


182  A    FAITHFUL   SAYING. 

is  the  kingdom  o£  heaven  which  He  came  to  establish,  and  so 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  He  said,  is  within  you,  is  here,  is  at 
hand.  Noio  is  the  accepted  time  ;  now  is  the  day  of  salvation. 
Seek,  my  friends,  a  present  salvation ;  trust  in  no  future  sal- 
vation. 

Have  you  ever  wondered  that  God  should  not  have  made 
known  to  the  psalmists  and  prophets  of  Israel  anything  about 
a  future  state,  anything  about  what  we  commonly  call  heaven 
and  hell  ?  Perhaps  if  He  had,  the  piety  of  His  ancient  people 
would  have  been  less  true,  pure,  and  spiritual,  than  it  was.  At 
any  rate  we  plainly  see  that  professing  Christians  very  generally 
so  dreadfully  abuse  the  doctrine  of  a  future  state  as  to  change 
the  perfect  religion  which  Christ  taught  into  one  essentially 
different,  one  far  inferior  to  ancient  Judaism  as  it  appears  in 
the  psalmists  and  prophets,  and  closely  akin  to  heathenism. 

The  salvation  which  Christ  really  came  to  bestow  is  one 
which  can  only  be  understood,  and  will  only  be  accepted,  by 
those  who  feel  aright  the  hatefulness  of  sin ;  who  see  that  it 
must  be  its  own  worst  punishment,  and  that,  in  fact,  all  the 
horrors  and  torments  of  hell  lie  so  essentially  enfolded  within 
it  that  nothing  can  deliver  us  from  them  which  does  not  deliver 
us  from  it.  The  primary  idea  of  Christ's  salvation  is  that  of 
healing — the  restoration  of  the  soul  from  spiritual  disease  to 
spiritual  health  ;  from  deadness  and  unsusceptibility  to  the 
presence  and  power,  righteousness  and  love  of  God  to  a  lively 
sense  and  appreciation  of  them.  If  we  would  know  it  and 
enjoy  it  we  must  apprehend  and  accept  it  as  inherent  in  holi- 
ness. We  must  feel  the  degradation  and  bitterness,  shame  and 
guilt,  of  a  state  of  sin,  and  learn  to  admire  and  love  the  beauty, 
the  peace,  the  elevation,  the  glory,  the  essential  blessedness  of 
a  state  of  spiritual  purity.  If  we  would  enter  into  the  heaven 
which  Christ  brought  to  light,  that  heaven  must  first  enter  into 
us.  It  must  be  within  us  even  here  on  earth, — within  us  as 
the  brightness  of  celestial  light,  as  the  fire  of  a  holy  purpose, 
as  an  energy  of  divine  righteousness,  as  the  music  of  a  well- 
ordered  soul,  as  the  highest  form  of  spiritual  life,  as  rest  and 
joy  in  God. 

Seek,  first  and  above  all,  dear  friends,  this   salvation,  this 
heaven,  this  kingdom  of  God,  in  which  all  things  to  be  desired 


A   FAITHFUL   SAYING.  183 

by  you  are  either  included,  or  to  which  they  will  be  added. 
Think  of  what  it  would  be  to  you  if  you  fully  had  it — of  the 
essential  peace  of  it,  the  elevation  above  passion  and  unregu- 
lated desire,  the  singleness  and  simplicity  of  it,  the  glowing 
shapes  and  glorified  visions  of  a  pure  imagination,  the  oneness 
of  your  souls  with  God  and  their  abundant  participation  in  the 
good  which  is  in  God ;  think  of  this,  and  make  it  the  one  grand 
aim  and  effort  of  your  lives  fully  to  possess  it. 

You  will  not  fail  if  you  seek  it  earnestly  in  Christ.  Christ 
is  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation.  In  so  far  as  Christ  is 
formed  within  you  salvation  must  be  realised  by  you.  Take 
His  example  and  work,  His  righteousness  and  love,  home  to 
your  inmost  hearts.  Receive  Him,  and  as  ye  receive  Him 
walk  in  Him.  Do  this,  and  your  souls  will  live ;  sin  will  die  in 
them,  and  a  glorious  quickening  will  take  place  in  them,  with 
the  spreading  light  of  a  new  creation,  shining  more  and  more 
unto  the  perfect  day.     Amen. 


XVI. 

CHRIST   SUFFERING   FOR    SINS.i 

"  For  Christ  also  hath  once  suffered  for  sins,  the  just  for  the  unjust,  that  He 
might  bring  us  to  God." — 1  Petkr  iii.  18. 

THE  Apostle  is  in  the  immediately  preceding  context  ex- 
.  horting  his  hearers  to  be,  amidst  all  their  trials  and 
afflictions,  followers  o£  that  which  is  good,  righteous,  kind, 
peaceable.  If  they  are  so  he  tells  them  that  God  will  protect 
and  bless  them.  They  may  have  to  suffer,  but  the  eyes  of 
the  Lord  are  over  them,  and  His  ears  are  open  unto  their 
prayers,  and  they  need  have  no  fear.  Happy  are  they,  even 
in  that  they  suffer. 

But  they  must  be  on  their  guard  not  to  have  to  suffer  on 
account  of  evil-doing.  They  must  be  careful  to  keep  a  good 
conscience  before  God  and  to  have  a  good  conversation  in 
Christ.  If  they  sin  it  may  be  well  that  they  should  suffer 
for  their  sin,  but  it  can  never  be  well  that  they  should  sin  in 
order  to  obtain  good  through  suffering  for  their  sin.  No  one 
is  entitled  to  expect  God's  blessing  on  the  suffering  which  he 
brings  upon  himself  by  disobedience  to  God's  will. 

In  the  text  the  Apostle  seeks  to  confirm  and  enforce  his 
exhortation  by  referring  his  readers  to  the  example  of  Christ. 
He,  their  Lord,  suffered,  suffered  to  the  uttermost ;  and  sin  was 
the  cause.  But  not  sin  of  His  own.  He  suffered  for  sins,  but 
for  the  sins  of  others.  He  suffered,  the  just  for  the  unjust; 
and  in  order  to  accomplish  a  great,  righteous,  and  merciful 
purpose — the  bringing  of  men  to  God.  If  His  followers  are 
to  suffer,  as  suffer  they  are  sure  to  do,  it  ought  to  be  as  His 
followers,  as  animated  by  a  somewhat  similar  spirit,  as  also 
eschewing  evil  and  pursuing  only  good. 

Such    is   the    simple    but    conclusive    argument   which   the 

1  Preached  at  the  re-opening  of  the  Abbey  Church,  Edinburgh,  on  Sunday 

forenoon,  March  5th,  1899. 

184 


CHRIST    SUFFERING    FOR    SINS.  185 

Apostle  here  employs.  It  is  not  the  argument  itself,  how- 
ever, which  I  wish  at  present  to  consider,  but  only  the  fact 
on  which  he  rests  it,  the  marvellous  fact  on  which  the  whole 
Gospel  of  the  grace  of  God  to  us  centres,  and  on  which  it 
depends — the  fact  that  "  Christ  hath  once  suffered  for  sins, 
the  just  for  the  unjust,  that  He  might  bring  us  to  God." 

This  fact  is  supremely  worthy  of  our  most  serious  considera- 
tion at  any  time.  There  can  certainly  be  none  more  appropriate 
for  our  consideration  at  the  present  time,  met,  as  we  are,  to 
commemorate  this  fact,  and  to  show  forth  the  sufferings  and 
the  death  which  Christ  our  Lord,  the  Holy  One  and  the  Just, 
in  His  infinite  love  for  us  sinners,  endured  that  He  might  bring 
us  to  God,  in  whom  alone  our  souls  can  find  satisfaction  and 
salvation. 

The  fact  that  Christ  so  suffered  as  He  did  is  the  central 
fact  in  the  history  of  the  world.  It  casts  a  wonderful  light, 
especially  over  the  whole  history  of  religion.  Christ  so 
suffered  as  to  prove  Himself  to  be  the  one  perfect  priest 
of  humanity,  the  offerer  of  the  only  perfect  sacrifice ;  so 
suffered  as  to  give  the  only  and  completely  satisfactory  re- 
sponse to  all  the  real  wants  of  human  nature  which  had 
originated  priesthood  and  sacrifice  throughout  all  parts  of 
the  world.  Even  pagan  priesthood  and  sacrifice  did  not 
spring  merely  or  mainly  out  of  imposition,  but  out  of  truths 
which  are  of  the  very  essence  of  all  religion — man's  sense  of 
dependence  on  Deity  and  of  his  need  of  influence  and  recon- 
ciliation with  Deity — and  these  truths  have  found  their  ex- 
planation and  satisfaction  in  Christ  alone.  In  the  work  which 
He  accomplished  by  suffering  and  death,  whatever  of  meaning 
and  of  truth  there  were  not  merely  in  Jewish  priesthood  and 
sacrifice,  but  in  all  priesthood  and  sacrifice,  found  fulfilment 
and  perfecting.  The  entire  history  of  priesthood  and  of  sacri- 
fice found  on  the  cross  of  Christ  both  its  judgment  and  its 
justification,  the  condemnation  of  the  errors  and  evils  which 
it  has  exhibited,  and  the  realisation  of  all  that  it  contained 
of  prophecy  and  of  promise. 

To  Israel  God  gave  prophecy  and  the  law,  a  specially 
appointed  priesthood,  and  an  elaborate  system  of  sacrifices. 
But  these  all  pointed  to,  united  in,  and  found  their  completion 


186  CHRIST    SUFFERING   FOR    SINS. 

in  Christ.  He  was  the  end  or  goal,  the  confirmation,  and  the 
substance  of  them  all.  They  had  their  Yea  and  Amen  in 
Him ;  but  apart  from  Him  they  can  only  be  regarded  as 
illusive  and  untrue,  or  at  least  dead  and  ineffective.  They 
are  now  either  abolished  because  fulfilled  by  Him,  or  retained 
but  vitalised,  spiritualised,  and  magnified  by  His  fulfilment  of 
them  and  relationship  to  them.  And  it  was  especially  through 
His  once  suffering,  the  just  for  the  unjust,  that  He  might 
bring  us  to  God,  that  this  was  effected ;  that  the  local  and  the 
temporary  gave  place  to  the  universal  and  the  eternal,  the 
shadow  to  the  substance. 

The  New  Testament  is  throughout  a  proof  of  this.  The 
Evangelists  occupy  about  one  third  of  the  space  which  they 
devote  to  their  narratives  of  Christ's  life  to  the  events  of  the 
single  week  of  the  Passion.  Clearly  they  attributed  to  His 
sufferings  and  death  an  interest  overshadowing  all  else  re- 
corded of  Him.  They  show  us  how  Christ  Himself  worked 
out  His  ministry  with  the  consciousness  that  the  great  task 
of  His  life  could  only  be  accomplished  through  His  being 
crucified  and  slain ;  and  how  on  the  night  of  His  betrayal 
He  instituted  the  sacrament  of  the  Supper,  and  gave  the 
command  which  secured  that  His  death  should  be  unceasingly 
commemorated  as  a  sacrifice  for  sins  until  He  come  again. 

When  we  pass  from  the  Gospels  to  the  Epistles  we  cannot 
fail  to  see  at  once  that  their  authors  wrote  and  lived  in  the 
firm  conviction  that  what  above  all  gave  significance  and 
efficacy  to  their  teaching  was  the  infinite  virtue  and  value 
of  the  death  of  Christ.  It  was  in  His  Cross  that  they  gloried. 
They  looked  at  all  subjects  of  which  they  treated — the  nature 
and  character  of  God,  the  moral  law  and  Divine  government, 
human  sin  and  its  consequences,  the  Old  Testament  sacri- 
fices and  prophecies,  the  whole  manifestation  and  mission 
of  Christ,  the  functions  and  duties  of  the  Church,  and  the 
destinies  of  mankind — in  relation  to  it,  and  in  the  light 
which  it  cast  upon  them.  They  felt  that  it  had  opened  up 
the  one  true  way  of  justification  and  was  the  great  source 
of  sanctification.  They  saw  in  it  the  key  to  the  mystery  of 
the  Divine  method  of  salvation,  of  God's  long  labour  to  bring 
man  back  to  love  and  obedience,  to  happiness  and  holiness. 


CHRIST    SUFFERING    FOR    SINS.  187 

They  recognised  with  gi'atefulness  and  joy  that  His  whole 
procedure  with  the  human  race  had  presupposed  the  Lamb 
slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world. 

In  the  wonderful  series  of  apocalyptic  visions  with  which 
the  New  Testament  so  aptly  and  grandly  closes,  the  central 
figure,  the  object  of  um^sal  adoration  and  praise,  the  Judge 
of  all  events,  of  all  lives?,'  of  all  nations,  the  Bestower  of  all 
blessings  and  honours,  the  Lamb  in  the  midst  of  the  thz'one, 
is  the  Lamb  which  had  been  slain. 

Such,  my  friends,  is  the  place  which  Divine  revelation 
assigns  to  Christ's  "once  suffering  for  sins."  It  is  not  the 
place  which  man  unenlightened  by  revelation  would  have 
assigned  to  it.  That  God  should  have  determined  so  to  save 
sinners  is  a  most  striking  proof  that  His  thoughts  are  not  as 
our  thoughts.  It  was  the  last  thing  man  left  to  himself  would 
have  thought  of,  to  build  all  his  hopes  and  aspirations  on  a 
death  of  suffering  and  of  shame. 

When  Christ  was  with  His  disciples  He  tried  to  lead  them 
to  anticipate  the  sort  of  death  He  would  die,  and  to  enlighten 
them  as  to  the  necessity  of  it.  But  they  could  not,  and  would 
not  be  convinced.  Their  minds  revolted  against  the  very  idea ; 
their  hearts  could  not  endure  it.  And  when  at  last  what  they 
had  been  so  often  told,  but  never  allowed  themselves  to  credit, 
came  about ;  when  their  Master  was  seized,  tried,  condemned, 
and  crucified ;  when  doubt  was  for  ever  thus  summarily  done 
away ;  they  were  overwhelmed.  Although  their  love  did  not 
cease,  their  faith  failed  utterly.  "  We  trusted,"  they  said 
sadly,  "that  He  would  have  redeemed  Israel." 

It  needed  Christ's  resurrection  and  ascension.  His  appear- 
ances during  the  forty  days  and  the  descent  of  the  Spirit  at 
Pentecost,  to  enable  even  those  who  had  been  His  most  inti- 
mate companions  to  see  His  death  in  its  true  light :  to  recog- 
nise that  they  were  erring  from  dulness  of  mind  and  slowness 
of  heart  to  understand  and  believe  their  ancient  Scriptures ; 
that  their  central  difficulty — the  crucifixion  of  Jesus — was  in 
fact  an  essential  part  of  the  counsel  of  God ;  that  so  far  from 
it  being  true,  as  they  had  thought,  that  suffering  was  fatal  to 
the  Messiahship  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  it  was  necessary  that  the 
Christ  should  suffer  and  so  enter  into  His  glory. 


188  CHRIST    SUFFERING    FOR    SINS. 

It  was  only  then,  and  in  a  way  which  it  is  utterly  in  vain 
to  attempt  to  ex]3lain  naturally,  that  the  great  truth  of  "  re- 
demption through  suffering"  flashed  upon  them,  filling  their 
minds  with  a  marvellous  light,  kindling  in  their  hearts  the 
fervid  fire  of  self-sacrificing  love,  making  luminous  to  them 
the  whole  course  of  their  national  history,  showing  them  that 
the  old  order  of  things  had  passed  away  and  one  far  grander 
had  come  in,  animating  them  with  a  sublime  confidence  and  an 
infinite  hope,  and  recreating,  as  it  were,  their  very  selves.  It 
was  only  then  and  so  that  there  was  effected  that  revolution  in 
the  souls  of  the  first  Christians  which  has  revolutionised  the 
world. 

Henceforth  they  preached  Christ  crucified  as  "  the  power  of 
God  and  the  wisdom  of  God  unto  salvation."  But  everywhere 
they  found  man's  natural  tendency  was  to  reject  the  doctrine 
with  aversion  and  disdain.  To  the  Jew  it  was  a  stumbling- 
block.     To  the  Greek  it  seemed  foolishness. 

Since  then  many  centuries  have  come  and  gone,  and  the 
Gospel  has  gained  glorious  triumphs  in  almost  all  lands.  But 
"  the  offence  of  the  cross  "  has  never  ceased.  It  has  indeed  to 
be  admitted,  and  may  gladly  be  admitted,  that  "the  power  of 
the  cross  "  has  made  the  very  world  itseK  less  worldly,  or  at 
least  less  decidedly  and  openly  anti-Christian  than  it  once  was ; 
that  even  the  world's  opinion  about  the  doctrine  of  salvation 
through  a  crucified  Saviour  has  undergone  a  change  for  the 
better.  The  influence  of  that  doctrine  has  been  such  that 
there  are  now  few  among  us  who  will  venture  to  express  con- 
tempt for  it,  or  even  allow  themselves  consciously  to  cherish 
contempt  for  it  within  their  own  breasts.  And  even  for  such 
homage  as  this,  even  for  such  respectful  neutrality  of  feeling 
as  this,  we  may  well  be  thankful. 

Yet  between  this  and  the  homage  which  is  due  to  it, — the 
warm,  living,  and  adoring  recognition  of  the  Divine  wisdom, 
condescension,  righteousness,  and  love,  displayed  in  Christ's 
sacrifice  of  Himself  on  behalf  of  sinners,  —  there  is  a  vast 
difference,  an  immeasurable  distance,  which  the  merely  natural 
man,  the  selfish  and  sensuous  man,  the  unthoughtf  ul,  unearnest, 
and  unspiritual  man,  never  traverses.  Such  a  man  necessarily, 
so  long  as  he  remains  what  he  is,  is  blind  to  the  real  character 


CHRIST   SUFFERING   FOR   SINS.  189 

and  significance  of  Christ's  death.  It  is  not,  and  cannot  be,  to 
him  what  it  ought  to  be.  He  does  not  so  view  and  accept  it 
that  it  can  accomplish  in  him  the  gracious  and  blessed  ends  for 
which  it  was  ordained  and  endured.  Instead  of  being  treated 
by  him  as  the  wisdom  and  power  of  God,  it  is  dealt  with  as  if 
it  were  the  foolishness  and  weakness  of  man. 

Let  us,  my  friends,  not  thus  err.  Let  us  abide  by,  and  act 
on,  God's  judgment.  What  He  deems  wise  and  powerful  is 
really  so ;  and  if  we  think  otherwise  it  can  only  be  because 
our  minds  are  so  darkened  and  perverted  that  they  do  not 
perceive  and  judge  truly.  The  history  of  the  more  than 
eighteen  centuries  which  have  elapsed  since  Christ's  death  has 
amply  proved  God's  thought  of  that  death  to  be  true,  and  the 
natural  man's  thought  of  it  to  be  false.  The  Divine  love  re- 
vealed in  the  self-sacrifice  of  Christ  has  actually  succeeded  in 
doing  what  every  other  influence  is  incapable  of  doing.  It  has 
in  every  variety  of  circumstances  shown  that  it  can  change  the 
entire  character  of  the  human  heart,  and  marvellously  affect 
the  conduct  of  man.  It  has  dispelled  the  darkness  which 
brooded  over  the  minds  of  the  most  benighted  heathens.  A 
sense  of  it  has  sufficed  to  transform  the  most  reprobate  sinners 
into  eminent  saints.  "  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up  from  the  earth," 
said  Christ,  "will  draw  all  men  unto  myself."  And  we  may 
all  now  see  that  it  is  from  the  cross  on  which  He  was  lifted  up 
that  He  is  exerting  His  greatest  influence ;  that  through  the 
attractive  power  of  the  cross  He  is  lifting  up  the  world  heaven- 
wards ;  that  by  His  cross  He  is  reigning  over  His  people,  and 
triumphing  over  His  foes  and  theirs. 

The  merely  natural  or  worldly  reason  may  deem  this  in- 
explicable, unreasonable.  The  spiritually  enlightened  reason 
will  not.  Whoever  contemplates  the  death  of  Christ  aright 
will  not.  Ah !  the  chief  cause  why  men  remain  alienated 
from  God  is,  it  is  to  be  feared,  just  that  they  do  not  draw  near 
to  the  cross  of  His  Son  and  steadily  and  reverently  contem- 
plate the  crowning  instance  of  Divine  love  there  exhibited. 
Would  they  only  in  a  patient,  humble,  prayerful  spirit  ponder 
on  all  that  Holy  Scripture  teaches  to  be  implied  in  "  Christ's 
once  suffering  for  sins,"  their  own  among  them,  all  their 
doubts  of  God's  infinite  fatherly  love  could  hardly  fail  to  be 


190  CHRIST    SUFFERING    FOR    SIXS. 

shamed  away ;  and  then  sin  would  begin  to  wither  and  to 
die  in  them,  bad  thoughts  and  feelings  to  leave  them,  and 
bad  modes  of  conduct  to  drop  off.  New  hearts  towards  God 
and  man  would  be  given  them.  They  would  become  new 
creatures  in  Jesus  Christ. 

The  cross  of  Christ  is  indispensable  to  the  attainment  of 
a  true  salvation.  Salvation  is  deliverance  from  the  state  of 
separation  from  God  and  of  sin  against  God  natural  to  fallen 
man,  and  restoration  to  such  a  position  of  harmony  with  God, 
that  he  who  is  the  subject  of  it  may  be  said  to  live  in  and  from 
God.  Nothing  short  of  this  is  worthy  to  be  regarded  as  salva- 
tion. There  can  be  but  one  true  life,  one  eternal  life ;  and 
that  life  is  from  God,  and  characterised  by  its  likeness  to  the 
life  of  God. 

Such  conformity  to  God  as  is  the  life  and  salvation  of  the 
soul  can  only  come  from  God  Himself.  The  nature  and  life 
of  God  to  which  we  are  to  be  conformed  He  must  Himself 
reveal  to  us.  His  revelation  of  Himself  in  nature,  however, 
is  not  enough  for  the  needs  of  the  sinner ;  nor  even  a  revela- 
tion through  miracles,  visions,  voices,  institutions,  words,  such 
as  He  made  to  Israel.  The  only  revelation  which  can  alone 
meet  the  requirements  of  the  case  is  a  revelation  in  one  who 
while  representing  truly  the  Divine  Nature  lives,  acts,  and 
suffers  under  human  limitations  and  conditions;  a  revelation 
through  a  living  soul,  akin  both  to  God  and  us,  one  who 
can  truly  "  show  us  the  Father,"  one  who  was  "in  the  bosom 
of  the  Father,"  and  can  come  with  the  mercy  and  love  of 
the  Father  to  draw  us  thereby  into  a  transforming  sympathy 
with  God ;  one  who  comes  at  the  same  time  as  a  human 
person,  a  veritable  brother,  that  he  may  show  the  Divine 
beauty  set  in  humanity,  show  the  Divine  love  through  suffer- 
ing, and  bind  our  hearts  to  his  own,  through  an  inter-con- 
sciousness of  temptation,  grief,  and  pain. 

In  Christ  suffering  for  our  sins  the  love  of  God  comes  direct 
and  close  to  us,  and  in  the  way  least  possible  for  us  to  doubt 
its  sincerity  or  intensity ;  or  to  refuse  to  return  love  for  love. 
But  to  meet  the  love  of  God  to  us  with  love  to  Him  is  to  be 
brought  near  to  Him.  Love  is  nearness.  Enmity  is  distance. 
To  have  enmitv  cast  out,  and  love  brought  in,  this  is  all  that  is 


CHRIST    SUFFERING    FOR    SINS.  191 

needed  that  n^e  may  live  near  to  God,  and  enjoy  His  communion, 
His  abiding  presence.  When  the  sonl  attains  this  it  has 
acquired  its  proper  good,  its  true  blessedness,  that  without 
which  it  never  can  have  real  rest  or  happiness. 

But  the  only  way  in  which  it  can  attain  this  is  the  way 
which  Christ  opened  up  through  His  holy  and  generous  suffer- 
ings unto  death.  Only  when  we  truly  realise  through  faith, 
when  we  sincerely  take  home  into  our  hearts  the  significance, 
the  spirit,  of  the  pure,  perfect,  infinite,  self-sacrificing  love 
of  the  Son  as  revealed  in  the  self-humiliation  and  agony  of 
His  death  on  the  cross,  can  we  savingly  apprehend,  or  shall 
we  rejoicingly  accept  that  eternal  love  of  God  the  Father, 
to  know  and  abide  in  which  is  alone  eternal  life.  Only 
thus  can  we  attain  access  and  nearness  to  God,  communion 
with  God. 

And  only  thus  can  we  retain  it,  and  profit  by  it  aright. 
Even  they  who  have  been  brought  to  God  may  be  greatly 
at  fault  by  not  valuing  the  blessing  as  they  ought;  for  not 
delighting  in  and  striving  after  ever  closer  communion  with 
God,  ever  growing  conformity  to  the  will  of  God,  as  they 
ought. 

That  we  might  live  very  near  to  God;  that  we  might  live 
in  the  full  sense  of  the  love  of  God ;  that  the  love  of  God 
might  dwell  ridihj  in  us,  and  overflow  to  all  God's  children 
and  to  all  God's  creatures,  was  the  end  of  Christ's  death ; 
and  we  should  not  be  satisfied  unless  we  feel  that  it  is  gaining 
its  end  in  us.  Let  us  beware  lest  Christ  have  suffered  for 
us  even  partially  in  vain.  Let  us  try  to  make  use  with  our 
utmost  diligence  of  the  way  which  He  opened  up  for  us  with 
so  much  labour  and  pain.  Let  us  seek  to  enjoy  to  the  full 
all  those  blessed  influences  and  privileges  of  reconciliation 
and  communion  with  God  which  He  procured  for  us  at  such 
an  incalculable  cost  of  sacrifice  and  suffering. 

To  this  end  may  God  grant  His  blessing  on  what  has  now 
been  said.  And  to  His  name  be  glory  for  ever,  through  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord.     Amen. 

I  have  now,  my  friends,  delivered  unto  you  the  message  of 
my  text,  but  it  is  only  fitting  that  I  should  add  a  few  words 


192  CHRIST    SUFFERING    FOR    SINS. 

having  reference  to  the  special  circumstances  in  which  we 
meet  to-day. 

You  have,  after  a  lengthened  absence  from  this  your  own 
place  of  worship,  the  satisfaction  of  finding  yourselves  again 
within  its  walls,  and  the  satisfaction  also  of  seeing  that  it  has 
been  enlarged,  greatly  beautified,  and  in  all  respects  improved. 
Its  interior  is  now,  I  think,  almost  all  that  could  be  desired : 
it  is  beautiful  to  the  eye,  commodious  and  comfortable,  and 
admirably  suited  for  the  various  services  of  religion.  You  may 
well  congratulate  yourselves  on  the  many  changes  for  the  better 
which  have  been  made  in  it,  and  may  reasonably  regard  its  re- 
opening to-day  as  an  outstanding  date  in  the  history  of  your 
Church. 

That  history  has  not  been  a  lengthened  one — the  Abbey 
Church  was  erected  in  1875-76 — but  it  has  been  all  the  more 
largely  on  that  account  a  history  of  your  own  making,  one  in 
which  many  of  you  must  have  taken  a  lively  interest  and  an 
active  share.  And  it  has  been  a  very  prosperous  and  creditable 
history.  Situated  as  it  is  where  it  is  greatly  needed,  it  has 
been  an  immense  boon  to  this  part  of  Edinburgh.  The  zealous 
and  faithful  labours  and  self-sacrificing  character  of  its  first 
pastor,  Mr.  Milne,  ought  to  be  long  and  gratefully  remembered. 
You  all  know  how  altogether  exceptional  has  been  the  increase 
of  its  membership  and  of  its  general  prosperity  under  the  pas- 
torate of  my  friend  Mr.  Sabiston.  So  far,  indeed,  as  that  is 
concerned  there  is  now  nothing  to  desire. 

Yet  you  are  not  so  prosperous  but  that  I  may  reasonably 
wish,  as  I  do  most  sincerely  wish,  that,  through  God's  blessing, 
you  may  have  uninterrupted  and  ever  increasing  prosperity. 
There  is  always  room  for  growth  in  grace.  To  spiritual  im- 
provement there  need  be  no  limit  or  end.  What  I  above  all 
wish  for  you,  however,  is  just  that  as  a  congregation  you  may 
make  continuous  spiritual  progress ;  and  that  as  members 
thereof  your  souls  may  always  prosper  more  and  more  through 
your  connection  with  it.  But  if  this  wish  is  to  be  realised,  it 
can  assuredly  only  be  so  through  a  steadily  increasing  faith 
among  you  in  the  truth  on  which  I  have  to-day  addressed  you. 

When  Emerson  visited  Carlyle  at  Craigenputtock,  the  latter, 
pointing  towards  the  parish  church,  said  to  his  American  friend, 


CHRIST   SUFFERING    FOR    SINS.  193 

"  Christ's  death  built  Dunscore  Church  yonder."  And  so  it 
had.  And  it  has  built  the  Abbey  Church  here  too,  and  indeed 
all  the  churches  of  Christendom ;  and  not  one  of  them  can 
firmly  stand  or  truly  prosper  on  any  other  foundation  than  that 
which  Christ  has  laid  for  them  by  "  His  once  suffering  for  sins, 
the  just  for  the  unjust,  that  He  might  bring  us  to  God."  The 
life  of  all  our  churches  has  had  its  source  in  Christ's  death. 

Churches,  we  must  remember,  are  not,  in  any  Scriptural 
sense  of  the  term,  merely  material  houses — buildings  composed 
of  dead  stones,  wood,  and  lime.  We  are  accustomed,  indeed, 
to  call  certain  of  such  edifices  churches,  and  to  cherish,  as  is 
most  befitting,  reverential  feelings  and  hallowed  associations 
in  connection  with  them  ;  but,  in  reality,  Chtirches  are,  as  St 
Peter  has  reminded  us,  "  spiritual  houses  " — edifices  composed 
of  living  stones,  savingly  united  to  the  one  head  corner-stone, 
chosen  of  God  and  precious,  which  has  life  in  itself  and  is  the 
source  of  life  to  all  the  stones  in  close  connection  with  it. 
The  one  true  Christian  Church  in  the  world  is  the  whole  body 
of  true  believers  in  Christ  throughout  the  whole  world.  The 
only  true  Christian  Church  in  any  given  place  consists  of 
the  truly  Christian  souls  in  that  place — those  who  belong  to 
the  one  vast  undivided  and  indivisible  body  of  Christ — not 
the  dead  stones  of  any  material  house,  but  the  living  stones 
of  a  spii'itual  house.  The  true  Abbey  Church  is  not  the 
material  building  so  called  but  the  spiritual  building  within 
that  building. 

It  is  only  "  spiritual  houses "  which  are  truly  Christian 
temples.  It  is  only  in  them  that  God  spiritually  and  effica- 
ciously dwells ;  only  in  them  that  there  is  a  holy  priesthood, 
and  where  every  Christian  is  a  priest;  only  in  them  that 
spiritual  sacrifices  truly  acceptable  to  God  are  offered  up, 
because  offered  up  and  sanctified  through  faith  in  Christ's 
sacrifice  of  Himself.  And  the  prosperity,  my  friends,  which 
I  would  above  all  else  wish  for  you  is  the  prosperity  of  a  truly 
Christian  Church — the  prosperity  of  a  growingly  spiritual  and 
Christian  life.  My  chief  and  most  earnest  wish  for  you  as  a 
congregation  is  that  all  your  souls  may  prosper,  that  they  may 
all  become  always  more  closely  joined  to  Christ,  and  to  one 
another    through    union    with    Christ;     always    increasingly 

N 


194  CHRIST    SUFFERING   FOR    SINS. 

quickened  and  strengthened,  enlightened  and  sanctified  by 
communion  with  Christ.  For  if  it  be  well  with  you  so,  all 
will  be  well  with  you.  That  will  bring  with  it  all  real  con- 
gregational prosperity. 

If  you  have  that  you  will  also  have,  for  example,  the 
great  blessing  of  peace  and  harmony.  No  petty  jealousies, 
ambitions,  or  differences  will  separate  and  disturb  you.  You 
will  be  kindly  affectioned  towards  one  another.  You  will 
feel  that  you  have  much  in  common — one  Father,  one  Saviour, 
one  sanctifying  Spirit ;  that  you  are  all  members  of  the  same 
household  of  faith,  living  under  the  same  Divine  Law,  and  with 
the  same  great  interests  and  glorious  hopes ;  that  you  are  one 
in  Christ,  one  with  each  other,  and  bound  to  subordinate 
everything  to  the  advancement  of  the  one  great  cause,  the 
coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

Further,  if  you  have  the  blessing  of  which  I  speak  there 
will  not  fail  to  be  found  among  you  willing  workers  for  Christ 
in  the  different  spheres  in  which  as  a  congregation  you  have 
need  of  them.  All  reasonable  calls  for  Christian  service 
addressed  to  you  from  this  pulpit  will,  in  that  case,  meet  with 
ready  responses.  There  will  be  no  necessity  for  any  impor- 
tunate begging  on  behalf  of  any  worthy  object  or  scheme. 
A  mere  statement  of  its  claims  will  be  sujBficient.  Those 
of  you  who  have  the  appropriate  talents  for  teaching  with 
advantage  in  the  Sabbath-school,  or  aiding  in  the  work  of 
the  choir,  or  taking  part  in  district  visitation,  or  co-operating 
with  the  minister  in  the  general  administration  of  the  affairs 
of  the  congregation,  will  be  ready  and  glad  so  to  put  them 
out  to  usury  in  the  service  of  their  Lord  and  Master.  Those 
who  have  not  such  talents  will  be  at  least  ready  and  glad  to 
give  what  encouragement  they  can  to  those  who  have  them 
and  who  are  employing  them  for  the  general  good,  and  will 
not  forget  to  pray  for  a  blessing  on  their  endeavours. 

And  further,  if  you  prosper  in  the  spiritual  life  as  a 
Christian  congregation  may  and  should,  your  sympathies  will 
extend  far  beyond  the  limits  of  the  congregation  itself.  You 
will  realise  that  you  have  duties  to  the  community  around  you, 
to  the  National  Church  of  which  this  congregation  is  a  com- 
ponent part,   and  to  the  Christian  Church  as  a  whole.     You 


CHRIST   SUFFERING   FOR   SINS.  195 

will  not  be  backward  in  giving  your  support  to  the  cause  of 
Christ  in  any  form.  You  will  desire  and  endeavour  to  be 
always  on  the  Lord's  side. 

Seek,  pray,  and  labour,  then,  my  friends,  to  grow  steadily 
and  continually,  to  grow  day  by  day,  and  year  by  year,  in 
grace,  in  the  knowledge  and  love  of  your  Heavenly  Father, 
in  faith  in  Christ  your  Saviour,  and  in  dependence  on  the 
Holy  Spirit,  for  assuredly  if  you  do  so  God  will  withhold  from 
you  nothing  that  is  truly  for  your  good  either  as  individuals 
or  as  a  congregation. 

Now  the  God  of  peace,  that  brought  again  from  the  dead 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  that  great  Shepherd  of  the  sheep, 
through  the  blood  of  the  everlasting  covenant,  make  you 
perfect  in  every  good  work  to  do  His  will,  working  in  you  that 
which  is  well-pleasing  in  His  sight,  through  Jesus  Christ ;  to 
whom  be  glory  for  ever  and  ever.     Amen. 


XVII. 

THE   LAMB   OF  GOD. 

"  The  next  day  John  seeth  Jesus  coming  unto  him,  and  saith,  Behold  the  Lamb 
of  God,  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world." — JOHN  i.  29. 

ON  the  day  before  John  had  already  borne  very  distinct  and 
impressive  witness  to  Jesus. 

The  verses  immediately  preceding  our  text  tell  us  of  its 
occasion  and  nature.  John  had  himself  made  a  great  impres- 
sion on  the  minds  of  his  countrymen.  Many  of  them  were 
expecting  the  appearance  of  some  one  to  raise  and  liberate 
Israel.  And  hence  when  John,  who  was  known  to  have  been 
set  apart  from  his  birth  to  a  Divine  mission,  and  to  have  led 
from  childhood  a  rigidly  ascetic,  devout,  and  righteous  life  in 
preparation  for  it,  at  length  came  forth  from  his  seclusion, 
confidently  proclaimed  the  nearness  of  the  kingdom  of  God, 
summoned  sinners  to  immediate  repentance  and  an  entire 
change  of  heart  and  conduct,  and  began,  without  asking  leave 
of  any  one,  to  baptize  and  to  gather  around  him  disciples,  great 
multitudes  naturally  flocked  to  hear  him,  and  not  a  few  began 
to  think  that  he  might  be  the  mighty  one  whom  they  had  been 
taught  by  ancient  prophecy  to  look  for. 

Such  being  the  state  of  the  public  mind,  it  seemed  good 
to  those  who  exercised  ecclesiastical  power  among  the  Jews  to 
send  from  Jerusalem  a  deputation  of  priests  and  Levites  to 
obtain  from  his  own  lips  an  explanation  as  to  who  he  was  and 
by  what  authority  he  spoke  and  acted  as  he  did. 

John  had  no  high  opinion  of  the  priests  and  Levites  of  his 
day,  and  he  does  not  seem  to  have  said  more  to  those  sent  to 
him  than  was  just  needed  to  answer  the  questions  which  they 
put  to  him.  But  his  answers  were  exceedingly  clear  and 
candid.  Was  he  the  Christ,  the  Messiah  ?  He  fully  acknow- 
ledged that  he  was  not.  Was  he  Elijah,  who,  according  to 
Malachi,  was  to  be  "  sent  before  the  coming  of  the  great  and 

196 


THE    LAMB   OF    GOD.  197 

terrible  day  of  the  Lord  "  ?  No,  he  was  not  Elijah  come  back 
to  earth.  Was  he  the  prophet  "  like  unto  Moses  "  promised  in 
the  Book  of  Deuteronomy  ?  He  was  not  that  prophet  either. 
Who,  then,  loas  he?  And  since  neither  the  Messiah,  nor 
Elijah,  nor  the  second  Moses,  what  authority  had  he  for 
speaking  and  acting  as  he  did,  and  especially  for  requiring 
Jews,  the  seed  of  Abraham,  the  children  of  Israel,  to  submit 
to  a  rite  which  implied  that  they  were  impure — no  better  than 
Gentiles  ? 

When  thus  questioned,  his  answer  was  a  testimony  on  behalf 
of  Christ,  all  the  more  impressive  because  of  the  dignity,  the 
reserve,  the  coldness  which  he  had  just  shown  towards  the 
priests  and  Levites.  This  severe  ascetic,  this  great  prophet, 
when  he  has  to  consider  his  relation  to  the  Christ  at  once  shows 
how  really  humble  he  is,  how  insignificant  he  feels  himself  to 
be.  He  the  Christ !  No !  he  is  nobody.  He  is  a  mere  voice 
— a  voice  without  worth  or  meaning  apart  from  the  Divine 
Word  to  which  it  refers — a  voice  calling  upon  God's  people  to 
repentance  in  preparation  for  the  coming  of  Him  who  was 
already  among  them  although  they  knew  Him  not.  His  own 
baptism  was  only  one  of  water  merely  pointing  to  another 
baptism  which  only  the  Christ  could  give.  His  own  mission 
had  all  its  significance  and  authority  from  another  Teacher, 
whose  shoe-latchet  he  was  not  worthy  to  unloose. 

John  could  not  have  expressed  more  clearly  his  recognition, 
or  more  strongly  his  sense,  of  his  own  inferiority  to  Jesus  than 
he  thus  did.  The  humility  which  he  showed  was  soon  to  meet 
with  its  reward.  The  next  day  John  had  the  opportunity 
given  him  to  make  his  testimony  complete  and  precise.  He 
saw  Jesus  coming  towards  him,  and  near  enough  for  some 
recognition.  When  he  saw  Him,  he  pointed  Him  out  to  those 
who  were  around  him,  and  cried  aloud,  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of 
God,  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world." 

His  cry  was  one  of  joy,  the  cry  of  a  man  who  had  found 
what  he  desired  above  all  else,  and  what  he  knew  the  world 
needed  beyond  all  else.  And  the  position  in  which  he  stood 
when  he  uttered  it  was  one  of  wondrous  privilege ;  one  which 
fully  accounts  for  our  Saviour  having  said  of  him  that  he  was 
"a  prophet,  and  much  more  than  a' prophet";  that  "among 


198  THE    LAMB   OF    GOD. 

those  born  of  women  there  was  not  a  greater  prophet  than 
John  the  Baptist."  The  narrative  before  us  is  the  best  com- 
mentary on  these  words.  The  whole  history  of  true  religion  in 
the  past,  with  all  its  rites  and  sacrifices,  precepts  and  prophe- 
cies, had  been  crying  to  men  to  wait  and  watch  for  what  John 
was  permitted  to  see.  The  great  distinction  denied  to  the 
wisest  and  best  men  of  former  ages  was  reserved  for  him; 
even  that  of  looking  on  the  face  of  the  Son  of  Man,  the  Hope 
of  Israel,  and  the  Desire  of  all  nations,  and  as  the  voice  of  the 
whole  ancient  economy  gathering  up  all  its  cries  of  distress, 
inquiry,  and  expectation  in  one  cry  of  joy  and  certainty  and 
discovery,  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  which  taketh  away  the 
sin  of  the  world."  Truly  he  was  a  prophet,  and  much  more 
than  a  prophet. 

Yet  we  must  not  forget  that  Christ  also  said  that  "  he  that  is 
least  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  greater  than  he."  We  cannot 
reasonably  suppose  that  John  even  in  that  moment  of  high 
inspiration  from  the  living  God,  when  he  uttered  the  words 
recorded  in  the  text,  had  in  his  mind  all  the  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings which  they  naturally  call  up  in  us  who  interpret  them 
in  the  light  of  Christ's  life  and  death,  of  the  teaching  of 
the  Apostles,  and  the  Christian  reflection  and  experience  of 
centuries.  We  have  no  right  to  attribute  to  him  views  and 
theories  of  sacrifice  and  atonement,  of  substitution  and  impu- 
tation, of  grace  and  justification,  which  have  only  grown  up 
within  the  Christian  Church.  To  the  very  close  of  his  career 
he  would  seem  to  have  fancied  that  Christ  was  to  be  a  temporal 
king  and  conqueror  as  well  as  a  moral  and  spiritual  reformer. 
Had  he  realised  as  the  simplest  of  Christians,  the  least  in  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  cannot  fail  to  do,  what  Christ's  being  the 
Lamh  of  God  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world  implied, 
his  mind  would  not  have  been  distracted  by  the  doubts  and 
fears  which  visited  him  while  he  lay  a  prisoner  in  the  fortress  of 
Machgerus. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  words  of  the  Baptist  in  themselves 
undoubtedly  mean  more  than  he  can  have  with  clear  conscious- 
ness meant  by  them.  They  were  more  comprehensive  and 
profound  than  he  was  aware  of.  So  is  it  often  with  the  words 
of  a  man  of  genius.     Still  more  so  is  it  with  the  words  prompted 


THE    LAMB   OF    GOD.  199 

by  special  divine  inspiration.  The  prophets  of  necessity  fre- 
quently gave  utterance  to  truths  wider  and  richer  in  significance 
than  they  or  their  contemporaries  could  realise. 

And,  I  think,  we  shall  assuredly  not  fall  into  error  if  we 
regard  the  exclamation  of  John  as  an  admirable  expression  in 
words  of  what  the  sacred  symbols  spread  on  a  communion  table 
show  forth  in  sensible  signs.  Both  the  words  and  the  signs 
convey  the  same  cry.  Both  tell  us  to  contemplate  joyously, 
reverently,  lovingly  the  Lamb  of  God  which  taketh  away  the 
sin  of  the  world.  The  words  of  the  Baptist  were  the  assurance 
that  the  goal  alike  of  ancient  law  and  prophecy — that  the 
burden  of  all  prediction  and  the  fulfilment  of  all  promise  made 
to  God's  people  in  past  ages — was  at  length  found ;  and  the 
symbols  of  communion  confirm  the  assurance,  and  teach  us 
that  whosoever  believeth  in  Christ,  feeding  on  Him  by  faith, 
receiving  into  his  soul  the  benefits  of  His  death,  trusting  in 
His  merits,  and  rejoicing  in  the  fulness  of  His  love  and  grace, 
is  no  longer  under  condemnation,  but  hath  eternal  life  abiding 
and  working  in  him. 

Behold  the  Lamb  of  God.  This  mode  of  speech  shows  that 
the  Baptist  had  in  his  mind  some  known  and  special  lamb  ; 
some  lamb  revealed  by  God,  provided  by  God,  pleasing  to  God, 
so  as  to  be  peculiarly  God's  lamb ;  and  at  the  same  time  some 
lamb  familiar  to  John's  hearers. 

What  lamb  was  it  to  which  he  looked  back  as  a  type  of 
Christ?  There  has  been  much  difference  of  opinion  on  the 
subject.  Some  have  supposed  that  it  was  the  lamb  of  the  daily 
sacrifice.  But  the  Baptist's  expression  is  too  definite  to  have 
so  general  a  reference  as  to  the  lambs  of  the  daily  morning 
and  evening  sacrifice.  And,  besides,  these  lambs  were  not  used 
in  sin-offerings  properly  so-called. 

Others  have  held  that  it  was  to  the  paschal  lamb  that  the 
Baptist  referred.  It  has  been  said  that  "  as  the  sacrifice  of 
the  first  paschal  lamb  procured  redemption  or  deliverance  from 
the  plague  that  smote  and  destroyed  the  Egyptians,  so  did  the 
sacrifice  of  the  Lamb  of  God  procure  eternal  redemption  for 
His  people,  or  take  away  the  sins  of  the  world."  But  against 
this  interpretation  it  has  to  be  said  that  the  paschal  sacrifice 
was,  indeed,  in  the  Jewish  mind,  connected  with  deliverance, 


200  THE    LAMB    OF    GOD. 

but  not  in  any  special  way  with  the  removal  of  sin.  We  know 
of  no  mention  of  sin  or  of  the  taking  away  of  sin  having  been 
made  to  "tbe  Jews  before  the  time  of  John  the  Baptist  in  con- 
nection with  the  paschal  lamb.  The  relationship  of  the  sacrifice 
of  the  paschal  lamb  to  the  crucifixion  of  our  Lord  is,  indeed, 
indubitable  and  most  wonderful,  but  it  was  one  which  could 
only  be  distinctly  perceived  when  the  antitype  as  well  as  the 
type  was  present  to  the  mind,  or,  in  other  words,  after  the 
institution  of  the  sacrament  of  the  Supper,  after  the  death 
of  Christ,  and  the  founding  of  His  Church.  Then  it  became 
obvious  that  He  was  "  our  Passover,"  and  more, — the  Lamb 
of  God  through  whose  sacrifice  sin  was  not  merely  passed  over, 
but  effectively  expiated  and  removed, — no  merely  temporary 
shadow  or  symbol,  but  the  realisation  of  eternal  spiritual  truth, 
of  absolute  Divine  love  and  righteousness. 

I  do  not  venture  to  deny  that  there  may  have  been  some 
indirect  reference  in  the  thought  and  language  of  John  to  the 
lambs  of  the  daily  sacrifice,  or  to  the  paschal  lamb  ;  but  it 
seems  to  me  that  there  is  very  little  doubt  that  the  refer- 
ence was,  chiefly  at  least,  to  the  lamb  of  the  53rd  chapter  of 
Isaiah ;  that  the  Baptist  followed  the  guidance  of  the  prophet 
who  there  exhibited  the  Servant  of  God  as  meekly  and  gently 
accepting  humiliation,  misery,  shame,  and  death,  in  order  to 
take  away  the  sins  of  the  people.  "  He  was  wounded  for  our 
transgressions,  he  was  bruised  for  our  iniquities :  the  chastise- 
ment of  our  peace  was  upon  him,  and  with  his  stripes  we  are 
healed.  All  we  like  sheep  have  gone  astray^;  we  have  turned 
every  one  to  his  own  way ;  and  the  Lord  hath  laid  on  him  the 
iniquity  of  us  all.  He  was  oppressed,  and  he  was  afflicted, 
yet  he  opened  not  his  mouth :  he  is  brought  as  a  lamb  to 
the  slaughter,  and  as  a  sheep  before  her  shearers  is  dumb,  so 
he  openeth  not  his  mouth."  And  so  on,  as  you  have  heard 
read  to-day. 

Nowhere  else  did  ancient  prophecy  rise  to  such  a  height 
as  in  this  description  of  the  suffering  Servant  of  Jehovah. 
There  is  nothing  of  the  same  kind  which  can  be  put  on  nearly 
the  same  level  even  in  the  Old  Testament.  It  was  so  unique, 
so  inapplicable  to  any  known  historical  individual,  so  plainly 
figurative,  so  certainly  meant  to  indicate  the  innermost  secret 


THE    LAMB   OF   GOD.  201 

of  God's  method  of  dealing  with  Israel,  that  it  could  not  fail 
strongly  to  attract  to  itself  the  attention  of  every  pious  and 
thoughtful  Hebrew. 

In  the  New  Testament  Christ  is  spoken  of  as  a  lamb  in 
thirty-one  passages,  twenty-nine  of  which  belong  to  a  single 
book,  the  Apocalypse.  It  is  quite  clear  that  the  source  whence 
the  writer  of  the  Apocalypse  drew  his  love  for  likening  Christ 
to  a  lamb  was  the  marvellous  picture  of  the  Suffering  Servant 
in  Isaiah.  Certain  also  is  it,  I  think,  that  John  the  Baptist 
must  have  had  the  same  picture  before  his  mental  vision  when 
looking  upon  Jesus  he  exclaimed,  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God." 

He  knew  of  the  strange  events  associated  with  the  birth 
of  Jesus.  He  must  have  heard  of  His  blameless  life.  His 
singular  wisdom,  His  pious  zeal.  He  felt  Him  to  be  one  far 
greater  and  better  than  himself,  and  with  a  higher  and  more 
enduring  work  to  do.  And  now  he  saw  Him  come  forth 
publicly  to  make  known  and  to  do  the  Heavenly  Father's  will. 
What  more  natural  than  that,  while  noting  His  meekness  and 
gentleness,  and  anticipating  the  resistance  and  contradiction 
which  He  would  meet  with  from  a  disobedient  and  gainsaying 
people,  the  whole  vision  of  the  Suffering  Servant  of  the  Lord 
should  rise  before  his  mind,  and  that  there  should  spring  up 
with  it  the  thought,  Here  is  the  Lamb  of  God !  Here  at 
length  is  He  in  whom  all  that  the  great  prophet  spake 
will  be  fulfilled.  We  know  how  wonderfully  it  has  been  ful- 
filled. Not  a  word  of  it  has  been  allowed  to  fall  in  vain  to 
the  ground. 

But  John  did  not  say  merely,  Behold  the  Lamh  of  God.  He 
added,  ivhicli  taheth  away  the,  sin  of  the  ivorld.  He  looked,  it  is 
evident,  to  find  in  Christ  a  Saviour  from  spiritual  as  well  as 
from  temporal  evils.  Many  of  the  Jews  desired  to  see  the 
Messiah  merely  because  they  wished  a  national  deliverer,  one 
who  would  raise  up  fallen  Israel  to  higher  prosperity  and 
greater  power  than  she  had  ever  had.  But,  of  course,  so  un- 
worthy a  conception  could  not,  and  did  not,  satisfy  the  more 
earnest  and  pious-minded  among  the  Jews.  Although  they 
also  looked  and  longed  for  Messiah  to  come  as  a  temporal 
and  national  King  and  Conqueror,  they  looked  and  longed  still 
more   for  a  spiritual   deliverance  to  be  effected   by  Him,   a 


202  THE    LAMB    OF    GOD. 

victory  over  sin  to  be  achieved,  a  reign  of  righteousness  to  be 
established. 

So  was  it  with  John  the  Baptist.  Patriot  although  he  was, 
and  with  all  a  patriot's  zeal  for  his  country's  glory,  the  thought 
about  Messiah  which  held  the  first  and  deepest  place  in  his 
mind  was  that  he  would  take  away  the  sin  of  the  world.  He 
felt  that  of  all  evils  sin  was  the  worst ;  that  it  was  the  root  of 
all  other  evils ;  that  deliverance  from  it  was  the  only  true  and 
thorough  deliverance  from  evil  which  either  an  individual  or  a 
nation  could  hope  to  experience.  He  had  a  strong  love  of 
righteousness  and  a  strong  hatred  of  sin.  Had  he  not  he 
would  have  been  a  most  unworthy  herald  of  the  coming  of 
Christ ;  for  to  save  and  purify  men  from  sin  was  the  primary 
and  chief  reason  why  Christ  came  to  earth  to  suffer  and  die. 

The  word  which  John  employed  to  denote  the  action  of  the 
Lamb  of  God  on  sin  is  rightly  rendered  taheth  away.  It  does 
not  mean  merely  hearing  u'p  or  sustaining  but  hearing  away  or 
removing.  The  hearing  aivay  may,  however,  include  the  hearing. 
Christ  by  bearing  sin  may  bear  it  away.  But  undoubtedly 
John  was  thinking  less  of  Christ's  taking  the  burden  of  sin 
upon  Himself  than  of  His  taking  it  off  mankind.  He  regarded 
that  burden  as  a  load  weighing  upon  men,  and  which  they  had 
strength  enough  neither  to  support  nor  to  cast  off.  And  he 
looked  on  the  Lamb  of  God  as  carrying  it  away  from  them. 

What  is  the  sin  which  according  to  John  the  Lamb  of  God 
takes  away  ?  The  prophet  in  the  53rd  chapter  of  Isaiah  said, 
"for  the  transgression  of  my  people  was  he  stricken."  His 
horizon  was  that  of  the  Jewish  world.  He  thought  only  of  the 
redemption  of  Israel.  The  view  of  the  Baptist  embraces  the 
human  race.  His  words — most  precious  and  blessed  words — 
are  that  the  Lamb  of  God  taketh  aivay  the  sin  of  the  world;  that 
is,  the  whole  enormous  mass  of  iniquity  which  is  in  the  world, 
which  burdens  and  blights  the  world ;  the  sin  of  which  original 
depravity  is  as  it  were  the  root,  vicious  habits  the  branches, 
thoughts,  words,  and  deeds  of  impiety  and  injustice  the  leaves 
and  fruits.  John  comprehends  all  in  one  general  word.  He 
speaks  of  sin  as  a  whole.  It  has  parts  indeed,  but  these 
may  all  be  referred  as  it  were  to  one  body  of  sin,  whether 
original  or  actual,  whether  of  feeling  or  thought,  of  word  or 


THE    LAMB   OF    GOD.  203 

deed,  whether  directly  against  God's  glory  or  our  neighbour's 
welfare. 

Let  any  man's  sin  be  what  it  may  Christ  has  died  to  take  it 
away,  and  will  take  it  away  if  the  man  will  allow  Him ;  will 
only  accept  the  help  which  he  needs,  and  which  the  Saviour  is 
most  anxious  to  give.  Every  sin  of  every  sinner  Christ  is 
willing  to  take  away,  "  The  sin  of  the  world  "  is  John's  expres- 
sion ;  and  no  man  can  say  that  he  and  his  sin  are  not  included 
therein.  God's  wish  is  that  every  man  should  be  saved.  He 
willeth  not  the  death  of  any  sinner ;  and  if  a  sinner  perversely 
refuse  life  and  choose  death  he  has  no  right  to  throw  the  blame 
or  any  part  of  it  on  a  merciful  and  gracious  God. 

We  have  come  together  this  day  to  show  forth  the  death 
of  Christ,  to  celebrate  the  love  and  grace  manifested  to  us 
in  the  sacrifice  of  the  Lamb  of  God.  May  the  words  of  the 
Baptist  and  the  elements  of  communion  conjoin  through  the 
power  of  Divine  grace  to  help  us  to  do  so  aright ;  may  they 
encourage  and  assist  us  to  contemplate  the  Lamb  of  God 
slain  for  our  offences,  and  to  yield  ourselves  up  to  be  saved 
from  our  sins  through  His  work  on  our  behalf. 

When  we  think  what  that  work  was — when  we  think,  as  we 
should,  of  all  that  He  endured  for  our  sakes  in  carrying  out 
His  errand  of  unspeakable  mercy  towards  us,  assuredly  the 
liveliest  gratitude  of  which  our  nature  is  susceptible  should 
be  awakened  within  us  at  the  table  of  communion,  and  may 
even  well  be  felt  by  us  but  a  poor  offering  to  bring  to  it. 

It  is,  however,  all  that  we  can  bring  to  it.  Therefore  let  us 
lay  aside  this  day  all  groundless  and  unworthy  anxiety  and  fear. 
Let  us  look  away  from  ourselves  and  our  inherent  helplessness 
to  the  efficacy  of  our  Saviour's  sacrifice  and  the  boundlessness  of 
His  love.  Let  us  behold  with  the  eye  of  a  sincere  and  steady 
faith  the  Lamb  of  God  as  "taking  away  the  sin  of  the  world," 
and  especially  that  part  of  "  the  sin  of  the  world"  which  con- 
cerns us  most,  even  that  part  of  it  which  belongs  to  ourselves. 
Let  us  behold  Him  as  the  Lamb  slain  for  us,  who  is  bearing 
away  our  iniquities,  who  is  setting  our  selves  free  from  sin  and 
death.  And  may  the  Spirit  of  the  living  God  be  with  us  all, 
and  grant  to  us  a  time  of  refreshing,  grateful  on  earth,  and 
gratefully  to  be  remembered  in  eternity.     Amen. 


XVIII. 
ENDS  OF  CHEIST'S  DEATH  AND  EESUREECTION.^ 

"Who  was  delivered  for  our  offences,  and  was  raised  again  for  our  justification." 

— Romans  iv.  25. 

THE  truths  conveyed  to  us  in  these  words  are  of  vital 
importance.  A  Christian  life  is  just  a  life  which  is 
habitually  influenced  and  governed  by  them.  The  Gospel 
so  centres  in  them,  and  is  to  so  great  an  extent  summed  up 
in  them,  that  it  can  never  be  inopportune  for  a  preacher  of 
the  Gospel  to  remind  his  hearers  of  them. 

There  is,  however,  a  special  reason  why  I  should  direct  your 
attention  to  them  at  this  time. 

You  are  looking  forward  as  a  congregation  of  Christian 
believers  to  participating  on  Sabbath  next  in  the  sacrament 
which  Christ  Himself  graciously  instituted  as  the  means  by 
which  His  people  were  to  show  forth  His  death  and  their 
own  interest  therein.  And  there  can  be  no  more  appropriate 
preparation  for  a  worthy  and  beneficial  partaking  of  the  sacra- 
ment of  the  Supper  than  pious  meditation  on  the  nature  and 
significance  of  the  death  which  it  commemorates.  But  it  is 
impossible  to  think  aright  of  Christ's  death  without  thinking 
of  it  in  connection  with  His  victory  over  death.  That  He 
was  delivered  for  our  offences  would  not  have  availed  for  our 
redemption  had  He  not  been  also  raised  for  our  justification. 
The  only  truly  saving  relation  of  a  soul  to  Christ  is  one  which 
is  rooted  in  faith  both  on  His  dying  and  on  His  rising  again, 
both  on  His  crucifixon  and  on  His  resurrection. 

I  may  add  that  the  week  on  which  we  have  now  entered 
will  be  regarded  by  the  vast  majority  of  devout  Christians 
throughout  the  world  as  the  holiest  week  of  the  Christian 
year,  because  of  its  associations  with  the  death  of  Christ,  and 
next  Sabbath  as  the  most  joyous  day  of  the  Christian  year, 

1  Preached  on  Palm  Sunday  in  St  Stephen's  Church,  Edinburgh. 
204 


ENDS    OF    CHRIST'S    DEATH    AND    RESURRECTION.       205 

the  brightest  and  best  of  its  Sundays,  because  the  one  which 
most  distinctly  declares  to  them,  "The  Lord  is  risen  indeed." 
It  can  do  us  only  good  if  we  too  are  enabled  thus  to  feel. 
The  words  of  St  Paul  in  our  text  are  directly  fitted  to  help 
us  so  to  feel.  As  we  meditate  on  them  for  a  little,  may  the 
Holy  Spirit  so  apply  them  to  our  hearts  that  they  will  pro- 
duce in  us  their  due  effects. 

Christ,  the  Apostle  tells  us,  was  "  delivered  for  our  offences," 
was  given  up  for  our  trespasses.  He  does  not  merely  refer  us 
to  the  fact  of  Christ's  death.  He  also  indicates  the  origin  and 
the  end,  the  cause  and  purpose  of  that  death.  It  is  always 
so  that  Scripture  presents  Christ's  death  to  us.  And  for  the 
obvious  reason  that  to  view  it  otherwise,  to  contemplate  it 
simply  in  itself,  to  regard  it  merely  as  an  isolated  event  apart 
from  the  grounds  and  the  issues  of  it,  must  be  an  unintelligent 
and  unprofitable  way  of  considering  it. 

Hence  St  Paul  here  tells  us  not  merely  that  Christ  humbled 
Himself,  suffered,  and  died  for  us,  but  that  He  was  "  delivered," 
given  up,  handed  over,  to  humiliation,  suffering,  and  death. 
God  gave  Him  up  to  death  for  us  all.  The  true  and  primary 
cause  of  His  death  was  the  consent  of  the  Eternal  Father's 
will  to  His  death.  The  Jewish  priests  who  contrived  His 
death,  Judas  who  betrayed  Him,  the  mob  which  clamoured 
for  His  death,  the  unjust  judge  who  pronounced  sentence  of 
condemnation  upon  Him,  Herod  who  mocked  Him,  and  the 
murderers  who  nailed  Him  to  the  cross,  had  all  their  share 
of  responsibility  for  His  death ;  but  the  power  which  they 
had  over  Him  was  a  power  given  to  them  from  above.  The 
Father  could  at  any  moment  have  scattered  the  counsels  and 
frustrated  the  efforts  of  those  miserable  men.  One  word, 
one  single  movement  of  Christ's  own  will  would  have  done 
so.  He  Himself  tells  us  that  He  had  only  to  ask  the  Father 
and  legions  iof  angels  would  be  forthwith  sent  to  His  aid. 
But  neither  the  Father  nor  the  Son  would  exert  their  power 
to  ward  off  the  pain  and  shame  of  the  death  on  the  cross. 
It  was  necessary  that  Christ  should  suffer  and  die  as  He  did. 
It  was  necessary  for  the  sake  of  mankind,  for  all  our  sakes, 
that  Christ  should  so  suffer  and  die,  and  therefore  the  Father 
willed  that  He  should  so  suffer  and  die ;  and  the  Son  freely 


206       ENDS    OF    CHRIST'S    DEATH    AND    RESURRECTION. 

and  fully  assented  to  the  Father's  will,  and  humbly  and 
faithfully  acted  on  it  until  it  was  completely  realised,  until  it 
was  "finished." 

This  word  "  delivered  "  jDoints  us,  then,  directly  to  the  source 
of  the  salvation  which  has  come  to  the  world  through  the 
death  of  Christ.  It  shows  us  that  death  not  as  a  mere  link 
in  the  chain  of  events,  not  as  a  mere  fact  in  the  course  of 
destiny,  although  it  was  foreordained  from  eternity,  but  as 
a  revelation  of  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  Eternal  Father 
towards  His  disobedient  and  rebellious  children,  a  wondrous 
disclosure  of  the  infinite  love  which  had  never  ceased  to 
follow  them,  but  had  clung  to  them,  never  let  them  go,  and 
at  length  sacrificed  what  was  dearest  to  it  in  order  to  win 
them  back  to  itself. 

The  death  of  Christ  can  only  be  to  us  what  it  was  meant  to 
be  when  it  is  viewed  as  at  once  an  exhibition  of  the  wondrous 
love  of  Christ  Himself  towards  us,  and  as  the  best  and  greatest 
gift  of  the  love  of  His  Father  to  us ;  only  when  we  see  the  love 
of  the  Father  shining  on  us  in  and  through  the  sufferings  of 
His  Son,  and  feel  it  lighting  up  and  quickening  our  naturally 
dark  and  dead  hearts.  "  God  is  love."  And  nowhere  has  God 
as  Infinite  Love  been  so  clearly  and  fully  revealed  as  in  the 
death  of  His  Son.  It  is  a  icnique  revelation  of  the  Divine  love  ; 
such  a  revelation  as  could  not  be  made  otherwise, — as  could  not 
be  made  through  mere  nature  or  history,  through  mere  miracle 
or  prophecy,  through  mere  inspired  speech  or  writing.  It  was 
absolutely  necessary  for  the  complete  development  and  dis- 
closure of  the  Fatherly  love  of  God,  and  nothing  else  can 
sufficiently  show  us,  or  bring  adequately  home  to  us,  what 
that  love  is. 

Our  text  reminds  us,  however,  that  we  must  trace  back  the 
death  of  Christ  to  more  than  mere  love  of  God.  It  tells  us  that 
Christ  was  "  delivered  for  our  offences"  God  gave  Him  up  to 
suffer  and  die  on  our  behalf  not  merely  because  He  loved  us, 
but  also  because  there  was  an  obstacle  to  His  love  resting  on 
us  and  blessing  us  which  could  only  be  removed  through  Christ's 
suffering  unto  death.  That  obstacle  was  a  vast  and  awful  one. 
It  was  "  our  offences,"  the  trespasses  of  the  human  race,  the 
iniquities  of  us  all.     These  had  to  be  testified  against.     Their 


ENDS    OF    CHRIST'S    DEATH    AND    RESURRECTION.       207 

enormity  had  to  be  made  manifest.  The  penalties  due  to  them 
had  to  be  boi-ne.  A  method  of  forgiving  them  consistent  with 
the  claims  of  perfect  justice  and  all  the  moral  interests  of  the 
universe  had  to  be  found  and  followed.  Sin  had  to  be  conspicu- 
ously condemned,  its  power  decidedly  broken,  and  an  effective 
means  of  expelling  and  destroying  it  provided.  In  a  word,  the 
moral  purity,  the  righteousness,  the  holiness  of  God,  required 
not  less  imperatively  than  His  love,  His  tenderness,  His  mercy, 
to  be  vindicated  and  displayed  in  the  redemption  of  mankind. 

True  love  and  true  righteousness  can  never  be  opposed  or 
even  separated.  It  is  neither  reasonable  nor  scriptural  to 
regard  the  death  of  Christ  as  a  manifestation  of  a  justice  in 
God  independent  of  love,  and  there  is  no  such  spurious  justice 
in  God.  His  justice  even  in  the  punishment  of  sin  ceases  not 
to  be  conjoined  with  love  of  the  sinner,  and  inasmuch  as  it 
seeks  the  righteousness  of  those  with  whom  it  deals  it  tends 
also  to  their  happiness.  So  equally  it  is  neither  reasonable  nor 
scriptural  to  regard  the  death  of  Christ  as  a  manifestation  of  a 
love  in  God  which  is  irrespective  of  justice,  and  there  is  in  God 
no  such  false  love.  When  He  delivered  up  Christ  it  was  to 
"take  away  the  sin  of  the  world"  ;  it  was  "to  redeem  us  from 
all  iniquity." 

And  nothing  could  be  more  fitted  to  do  so.  The  fact  that 
Christ  required  to  be  "delivered  for  our  offences"  of  itself 
shows  as  nothing  else  could  conceivably  do  how  terribly  serious 
these  offences  are  in  God's  sight  and  in  real  fact.  We  often 
think  of  our  offences  with  a  strange  levity,  hardly  feeling 
them  burdening  or  troubling  our  consciences  at  all.  Yet  they 
were  what  caused  Christ  to  suffer  and  to  die.  Yes,  as  truly 
as  the  offences  of  Judas,  Caiaphas,  Pilate,  and  Herod,  of  the 
Jewish  Pharisees  and  the  Roman  soldiers,  our  offences  inflicted 
on  Him  the  indignities  and  agonies  of  which  we  read  in  the 
Gospels ;  betrayed  Him,  roused  up  and  armed  His  enemies 
against  Him  ;  forced  the  bloody  sweat  from  His  brow  and 
groans  from  His  breast.  It  was  our  sins,  the  iniquities  of  us 
all,  the  ungodliness,  the  untruthfulness,  the  unbelief,  pride, 
dishonesty,  lust,  cruelty,  of  each  and  every  member  of  our 
rebellious  race,  which  tortured  His  body,  pierced  His  soul,  and 
deprived  Him  of  life. 


208       ENDS    OF   CHRIST'S   DEATH    AND   RESURRECTION. 

And  when  we  are  tempted  to  think  with  indifference  of  the 
sinfulness  of  our  sins  we  have  only  to  look  at  them  seriously  in 
the  light  which  streams  from  the  cross  in  order  to  see  how 
foolish  and  wrong  it  must  be  to  regard  them  in  such  a  way. 
Calvary  shows  us  what  God  thought  of  them,  how  Christ  felt 
towards  them,  and  what  it  must  have  cost  us  if  we  had  required 
to  atone  for  all  the  evil  we  had  done.  Well  may  we  glory 
in  "the  offence  of  the  cross,"  were  it  only  that  it  so  clearly 
discloses  to  us  the  hatefulness  of  our  own  offences  and  so 
impressively  warns  us  to  strive  to  offend  no  more. 

The  phrase  "  delivered  for  our  offences,"  I  must  further  add, 
reminds  us  that  Christ's  death  stands  to  our  sins  in  a  relation 
which  no  other  death  has  held  or  can  hold  to  them.  It  indi- 
cates a  specific  difference — a  distinct  difference  in  kind — 
between  the  death  of  Christ  and  the  death  of  any  merely 
human  martyr.  The  martyrs  have  died  for  our  instruction 
and  our  good.  They  have  given  us  by  their  deaths  glorious 
and  affecting  evidences  of  self-sacrifice,  courage,  and  sincerity, 
of  their  piety  towards  God  and  of  their  love  to  their  fellow-men. 
But  none  of  them  died  for  our  sins.  It  would  be  an  utter 
abuse  of  language  to  speak  of  the  death  of  any  of  them  in  such 
a  way.  Christ  alone  was  crucified  for  us  ;  alone  was  "  delivered 
for  our  offences."  His  death  has  a  character,  a  glory,  and  an 
efficacy  which  belong  to  no  other  death. 

It  was  a  death  in  our  room  and  stead.  It  was  the  death  of 
one  who  took  on  Him  the  nature  of  man,  and  became  not 
merely  a  man  among  men,  but  the  man  as  no  one  else,  the 
second  Adam,  the  spiritual  head  of  a  new  humanity,  which  God 
cannot  view  as  without  Christ  but  as  in  Christ,  and  therefore 
carrying  within  it  the  all-availing  expiation  effected  by  Christ. 
No  death  save  the  death  of  one  whose  love,  righteousness,  and 
obedience  were  perfect,  who  united  Godhead  and  Manhood  in 
His  person,  and  who  freely  and  fully  identified  Himself  with 
men,  and  sacrificially  substituted  Himself  for  them,  could  have 
been  the  condemnation  of  human  sin,  the  satisfaction  of  Divine 
justice,  and  the  ground  of  reconciliation  between  God  and  man, 
which  was  required. 

The  perfect  life  ending  in  the  holy  death  of  the  Incarnate 
One  could  alone  remove  the  tremendous  obstacle  to  the  loving 


ENDS  OF  Christ's  death  and  resurrection.     209 

action  of  God's  will  in  the  world  presented  by  human  wickedness 
and  guilt;  could  alone  open  a  way  in  which  the  Divine  love 
might  find  full  scope  and  exercise ;  and  could  alone  succeed 
in  effectively  awakening  spiritual  life  in  those  who  were  dead 
in  trespasses  and  sins. 

Such  being  the  case,  there  is  surely  wonderful  comfort  for  us 
in  the  assurance  that  Christ  was  delivered  for  our  offences.  It 
gives  us  precisely  the  information  which  our  consciences  most 
need.  It  tells  us  that  there  is  forgiveness  for  us  with  God  ; 
that  we  are  free  from  the  curse  of  a  broken  law ;  that  we  may 
reasonably  hope  to  be  cleansed  from  our  sins. 

But  there  is  also  something  very  serious  in  it.  It  is  a  warn- 
ing to  us  that  there  is  no  other  salvation  for  us  than  that  which 
is  offered  us  through  faith  in  Christ ;  that  there  is  no  other 
remedy  than  the  one  which  He  has  wrought  out.  Choice  be- 
tween the  acceptance  or  rejection  of  Christ  is  choice  between 
life  and  death.  No  one  has  died  for  our  offences  but  Christ, 
and  no  one  else  can  save  us  from  our  offences  and  their  con- 
sequences. 

Let  us  now  pass  to  the  other  truth  which  our  text  states. 
Here  I  shall  be  very  brief.  Christ  was  raised  again  for  our 
justification.  This  is,  of  course,  not  equivalent  to  denying  that 
Christ  also  died  for  our  justification.  It  is,  however,  quite  in 
accordance  with  the  usual  language  of  St  Paul  to  connect 
Christ's  death  specially  with  the  believer's  sin  and  Christ's 
resurrection  specially  with  the  believer's  justification.  Christ 
died  for  our  sins  in  order  that  through  union  with  Him  we 
might  die  unto  sin.  Christ  rose  again  that  through  union  with 
Him  we  might  rise  into  newness  of  life. 

Christ,  our  mediator,  being  not  only  very  man,  but  also  of  a 
heavenly  and  divine  nature,  begotten  by  the  power  not  of  flesh 
and  blood,  but  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  could  not  remain  subject  to 
death.  He  submitted  Himself  to  its  sway  for  a  time,  in  order 
to  discharge  the  office  which,  out  of  infinite  love  to  men.  He 
had  undertaken,  but  that  being  accomplished.  His  nature  in- 
evitably asserted  its  superiority  to  such  bondage,  and  returned 
to  its  true  condition  and  to  the  enjoyment  of  its  own  inherent 
divine  life. 

0 


210       ENDS    OF    CHRIST'S    DEATH    AND   RESURRECTION. 

And  even  apart  altogether  from  the  origin  and  character  of 
His  nature,  His  office  and  our  advantage  demanded  that  He 
should  rise  from  the  dead.  And  this  is  what  the  Apostle  had 
in  view  when  He  tells  us  that  Christ  was  raised  again  for  our 
justification. 

Christ  by  His  sufferings  and  death  had  atoned  for  our  sins. 
To  that  atonement  as  such  nothing  required  to  be  added.  It 
was  perfect  and  all-sufficient  in  itself.  It  needed  only  to  be 
accepted.  But  it  did  need  to  be  accepted.  The  benefits  of  it 
can  only  be  enjoyed  by  those  who  believe  in  it ;  who  appro- 
priate the  truth  and  the  love  and  the  grace  which  are  in  it. 
The  death  of  Christ  must  leave  in  condemnation — and  even  in 
many  cases  deepen  their  condemnation — those  who  have  no 
belief  in  its  importance,  no  real  sense  of  their  interest  in  it. 
Without  faith  there  can  be  no  justification. 

But  could  there  be  faith  in  Christ  at  all — any  real,  ope- 
rative, and  saving  faith — had  there  been  no  resurrection? 
No. 

Had  our  Lord  left  His  body  lying  in  the  sepulchre,  how 
could  we  have  supposed  that  He  had  been  able  to  raise  others 
from  the  sleep  of  death  ?  How  could  we  have  been  assured 
that  His  obedience  and  sacrifice  had  been  perfectly  acceptable 
to  the  Father?  Who  sees  not  that  in  such  a  case  our  faith 
must  have  remained  buried  in  the  same  dust  which  covered  His 
body?  Could  we  fail,  had  He  never  risen,  to  regard  Him 
otherwise  than  as  not  the  true  Son  of  God  but  a  mere  man  like 
ourselves?  The  death  of  Christ,  had  it  not  been  followed 
by  His  resurrection,  must  have  seemed  simply  the  calamit- 
ous end  of  a  strange  enthusiast  who  had  undertaken  more 
than  He  could  accomplish,  and  promised  what  was  never  ful- 
filled. Had  Christ  Himself  not  been  raised  there  could 
have  been  no  Gospel,  as  there  has  been,  to  "bring  life  and 
immortality  to  light,"  and  to  make  what  had  been  previously 
only  a  vague  and  dreary  anticipation  a  blessed  and  a  welcome 
certainty. 

It  is  only  through  knowing  that  Christ  rose  from  the 
dead  that  we  can  firmly  believe  in  His  Eternal  Sonship, 
in  His  atoning  death,  in  His  now  living  and  reigning  with 
God,   and  that  we  can  look  forward  with  joyous  confidence 


ENDS    OF    CHRIST'S   DEATH    AND    RESURRECTION.       211 

to  being  for  ever  with  Him,  and  finding  all  His  promises 
fulfilled. 

The  Christian  Church  arose  out  of  assurance  of  the  resur- 
rection. It  triumphed  through  that  assurance.  It  would 
dissolve  and  die  were  it  to  lose  it.  And  the  power  of  the 
resurrection  gives  to  the  life  of  each  individual  Christian,  hope- 
fulness, strength,  gladness,  and  its  pure  and  heavenly  character. 
The  life  of  the  Christian  is  life  in  the  risen  Lord,  life  hid  with 
Christ  in  God,  resurrection  life,  life  which  has  been  raised  out 
of  death  and  the  dust  and  now  through  its  union  with  the  life 
of  the  Risen  Saviour  seeks  to  be  ever  with  Him  and  aspires  to 
heavenly  holiness.  The  power  of  the  resurrection  raises  the 
soul  above  the  world  and  produces  and  sustains  in  it  the  life 
which  God  approves.  Christ  was  raised  again  for  our  jus- 
tification. 

Let  us  all,  then,  my  friends,  sincerely  receive  Christ  both 
as  delivered  for  our  sins  and  as  raised  again  for  our  justification. 
Let  us  pray  for  an  ardent  desire  to  share  alike  in  the  fruit  of 
His  sufferings  and  in  the  power  of  His  resurrection.  Let  us 
to  this  end  make  a  good  use  of  the  week  before  us.  Let  us 
read  and  try  to  realise  what  the  Evangelists  have  written  for 
our  instruction  as  to  what  took  place  in  and  around  Jerusalem 
in  that  memorable  week  ushered  in  by  the  day  when  crowds 
escorted  Jesus  into  the  city,  shouting  Hosannas,  and  which 
ended  with  the  day  when,  after  having  suffered  many  and 
awful  things  at  the  hands  and  for  the  sins  of  men,  yea,  being 
crucified,  dead,  and  buried.  He  rose  victorious  from  the  grave, 
the  Conqueror  of  Sin  and  Death,  the  Lord  of  Life.  Let  us 
prayerfully  try  to  take  home  to  our  hearts  the  lessons  of  every 
incident  connected  with  our  Lord's  death  and  resurrection,  to 
retain  them  there,  and  to  allow  them  to  bear  their  appropriate 
fruits  in  our  lives. 

Let  us  beware  lest  Christ  have  either  died  or  risen  for  us 
wholly  or  even  partially  in  vain.  Let  us  seek  to  enjoy  to  the 
full  all  those  blessed  influences  and  privileges  of  reconciliation 
and  communion  with  God  which  He  procured  for  us  both 
through  His  crucifixion  and  through  His  resurrection. 

To  this  end  may  we  use  aright,  and  find  richly  helpful,  the 
sacred  ordinance  in  which  we  are  so  soon  to  participate.     To 


212     ENDS  OF  Christ's  death  and  eesurrection. 

this  end  may  God  incline  and  inspire  our  hearts  to  join  in  it 
aright,  humbly  to  receive  the  great  truths  which  it  so  impres- 
sively proclaims,  and  eagerly  to  appropriate  the  sustenance 
and  the  benefits  which  it  is  designed  to  supply  for  our  spiritual 
nourishment  and  growth  in  grace. 

To  this  end  also  may  God  grant  His  blessing  on  what  has 
now  been  said.  And  to  His  name  be  glory  for  ever,  through 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.     Amen. 


XIX. 

CHRIST  MADE   UNTO   US   WISDOM. 

"  Christ  Jesus,  who  of  God  is  made  unto  us  wisdom,  and  righteousness,  and 
sanctification,  and  redemption." — 1  CoK.  i.  30. 

ST  PAUL  begins  this  chapter — begins  this  epistle — by  ex- 
pressing thankfulness  for  the  manifold  gifts  of  knowledge 
and  teaching  which  the  Corinthians  had  received  from  God, 
and  hope  that  the  good  work  which  had  been  begun  in  them 
would  be  continued  to  the  end.  He  then  proceeds  to  censure 
them  for  their  divisions,  and  to  enjoin  them  to  free  themselves 
from  the  spirit  of  party  and  to  remember  their  unity  in  Christ. 
This  leads  him  to  insist  that  he  had  not  laboured  among  them 
to  form  a  party — that  he  had  not  baptized  into  his  own  name 
or  sought  to  have  men  calling  themselves  adherents  of  his — 
that  his  great  object,  the  aim  to  which  all  else  had  been  sub- 
ordinated, was  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel,  the  making  known 
the  way  of  salvation  through  Christ.  This  leads  him  to  state 
and  vindicate  the  subject  and  manner  of  his  preaching.  There 
seems  to  have  been  much  unprofitable  discussion  about  that 
among  the  Christians  of  Corinth.  Living  in  a  city  full  of 
rhetoricians  and  philosophers,  some  of  them  had  begun  to 
despise  the  simple,  unadorned,  substantial,  practical  Gospel 
teaching  which  he  had  given  them.  There  was  also  a  strong 
Je\vish  party,  and  many  of  its  members  hankered  after  signs, 
wonders  of  mere  power.  In  the  latter  part  of  this  chapter  St 
Paul  is  speaking  very  directly  and  plainly  to  both  of  these 
classes,  but  especially  to  the  former. 

He  says,  as  it  were.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  I  preached  to 
you  plainly  and  without  eloquence  about  a  crucified  Jesus  only. 
I  glory  in  that.  It  is  in  the  tidings  of  a  crucified  Messiah,  not 
in  human  wisdom  and  eloquence,  that  the  true  enlightenment 
and  life  of  the  soul  are  to  be  found.  What  has  been  done  by 
your  philosophers,  your  logicians,  your  orators  and  disputers? 

213 


214  CHRIST    MADE    UNTO    US    WISDOM. 

Why,  with  all  their  wisdom,  they  have  remained  in  awful  igno- 
rance of  the  true  God  and  His  blessed  will.  God  has  proved 
their  wisdom  to  be  merest  folly.  And  it  has  pleased  Him  to 
manifest  His  wisdom  and  saving  power  by  what  seems  to  them 
folly  and  weakness.  I,  therefore,  and  those  who  are  like- 
minded,  set  at  nought  the  wisdom  of  the  world,  and  proclaim, 
announce,  Christ  Crucified.  True,  that  is  a  message  which 
neither  Jew  nor  Greek  willingly  accepts ;  the  Jew  craves  for  an 
outward  miraculous  manifestation  of  power,  and  is  scandalised 
by  the  idea  of  a  Messiah  who  was  put  to  death  as  a  malefactor ; 
the  Greek  seeks  for  a  philosophy,  for  a  theory  which  will  exer- 
cise his  intellectual  subtilty  and  gratify  his  intellectual  curiosity, 
and  to  him  the  proclamation  of  a  redemption  through  Christ 
crucified  appears  to  be  folly;  but,  in  reality,  in  spite  of  the 
imaginations  of  the  natural  mind  and  heart  in  Jew  and  Greek, 
it  is  to  all,  whether  Jew  or  Greek,  who  have  been  called  into 
God's  Church  and  kingdom,  the  power  of  God, — a  power  far 
greater  than  that  which  could  be  displayed  by  any  sign  from 
heaven  or  outward  miracle, — and  the  wisdom  of  God, — a  far 
greater  manifestation  of  wisdom  than  any  system  of  speculation 
ever  devised  by  the  human  intellect. 

"  The  foolishness  of  God  " — that  way  of  God  which  is  esteemed 
foolishness  by  you  Greeks — "  is  wiser  than  all  the  wisdom  of 
men,"  and  the  man  who  chooses  it,  however  unlearned,  however 
ignorant,  however  little  you  may  esteem  his  mind,  is  wiser  far 
than  the  wisest  of  your  philosophers ;  and  "  the  weakness  of 
God " — that  way  of  saving  men  which  is  weak  in  the  eyes 
especially  of  you  Jews — "  is  stronger  than  the  power  of  men," 
delivering  from  the  bondage  of  sin,  subduing  and  sanctifying 
the  heart,  and  overcoming  obstacles  as  no  human  power  can  do. 
"  For  you  see  your  calling,  brethren  " — you  must  discern  if  you 
look  to  the  manner  and  circumstances  of  your  conversion  to 
Christianity — how  the  Divine  Wisdom  has  so  ordered  it  that 
not  many  who  are  wise  in  the  estimation  and  with  the  wisdom 
of  this  world,  not  many  who  are  powerful  or  noble  have  been 
"  called  " — have  been  put  into  possession  of  the  hopes  and  pro- 
mises of  the  Gospel  or  been  made  use  of  to  propagate  it ;  but 
"  God  hath  chosen  the  foolish  things  of  the  world  " — that  simple 
way  of  instructing  mankind  which  many  count  foolishness,  and 


CHRIST    MADE    UNTO    US   WISDOM.  215 

those  unlearned  Apostles  whom  they  represent  as  fools — "to 
confound  the  wise  " — those  philosophers,  those  searchers  into 
nature's  secrets — who,  with  all  their  wisdom  and  searching,  have 
really  found  so  little ;  "  and  God  hath  chosen  the  weak  things  of 
the  world " — poor  fishermen  and  tent-makers,  for  instance, 
assisted  by  no  human  force — "to  confound  the  things  which  are 
mighty  " — to  break  through  the  opposition  of  the  peoples,  the 
priests,  the  kings  of  the  earth,  and  to  pull  down  the  strong- 
holds, cast  down  the  reasonings,  and  level  the  heights  of  the 
philosophers  who  exalt  themselves  against  the  knowledge  of 
Christ,  "  And  base  things  of  the  world,  and  things  which  are 
despised,  yea  and  things  which  are  not,  hath  God  chosen  to 
bring  to  nought  things  that  are ;  that  no  flesh  should  glory  in 
His  presence." 

This  leads  the  Apostle  to  the  wonderful  utterance  from  which 
I  take  my  text.  Before  God,  man  has  nothing  in  himself, 
nothing  of  his  own,  in  which  he  can  glory.  Before  God,  and 
in  himself,  he  is  a  being  made  up  of  wants  which  he  cannot 
supply  by  his  own  powers  and  exertions.  He  has  a  spiritual 
blindness  which  prevents  him  from  perceiving  the  truth  most 
necessary  for  his  guidance  as  a  spiritual  being.  He  has  ten- 
dencies to  sin  which  can  only  be  resisted  by  the  working  of 
another  power  than  his  own  sinful  self-will.  He  requires  a 
reconciliation  with  God  not  of  his  own  making.  The  law  of 
God  is  a  law  which  demands  a  reasonableness,  a  purity,  a  justice, 
a  holiness,  which  no  man  renders ;  and  therefore  every  man 
should  feel  that  far  from  being  entitled  to  glory  before  God, 
he  is  under  His  righteous  condemnation,  and  cannot  hope  to 
escape  therefrom  by  any,  even  the  most  strenuous  efforts  of 
his  own. 

Is  there,  then,  nothing  for  man  but  despair,  as  regards  what 
is  of  highest  concernment  to  him,  his  relation  to  God  and  his 
destiny  as  a  spiritual  being?  Is  salvation — not  in  the  mean 
and  narrow  sense  given  to  the  word  in  common  speech  and 
popular  theology,  as  escape  from  a  future  of  pain  into  one  of 
pleasure — but  is  salvation  in  the  grand  and  broad  sense  given 
to  the  word  in  Scripture — is  salvation  as  inclusive  of  enlighten- 
ment of  mind  and  purification  of  heart,  of  deliverance  from  the 
power  of  sin  and  the  condemnation  of  the  moral  law,  of  com- 


216  CHRIST    MADE    TJNTO    US   WISDOM. 

munion  with  God  and  delight  in  His  service — is  salvation  as 
inclusive  of  whatever  is  required  by  man  to  realise  his  true 
destination  as  a  spiritual  being,  hopelessly  unattainable  ?  If  it 
be  so,  man  is  altogether  vanity,  and  it  would  be  better  for  him 
not  to  be.  But  it  is  not  so.  This  only  is  true  that  his  salvation 
is  one  for  which  he  must  be  indebted  not  to  himself  but  to  his 
God ;  it  is  one  which  he  must  consent  to  receive  from  God.  It 
must  come  through  Christ  whom  God  has  given  to  be  a  pro- 
pitiation for  sin,  and  in  whom  He  has  clearly  revealed  to  us 
His  own  Fatherhood  and  glory ;  Christ  in  whom  dwells  the 
riches  of  grace,  the  fulness  of  Godhead,  and  the  perfection 
of  manhood ;  Christ  who  of  God  is  made  unto  us  wisdom, 
righteousness,  sanctification,  and  redemption.  It  is  a  salva- 
tion in  order  to  receive  which  a  man  must  cease  to  glory  in 
himself,  must  cease  to  glory  in  man,  in  the  power  or  the 
wisdom  or  the  goodness  of  man,  and  learn  to  glory  in  God 
alone.  As  saith  Jeremiah  (ix.  23-24),  "  Let  not  the  wise  man 
glory  in  his  wisdom,  neither  let  the  mighty  man  glory  in  his 
might ;  let  not  the  rich  man  glory  in  his  riches ;  but  let  him 
that  glorieth  glory  in  this,  that  he  understandeth  and  knoweth 
Me,  that  I  am  the  Lord  who  exerciseth  loving- kindness,  judg- 
ment, and  righteousness,  in  the  earth." 

It  was  because  St  Paul  felt  that  man  could  only  reasonably 
glory  in  God  as  He  had  revealed  Himself  through  Jesus 
Christ — that  there  was  no  other  name  than  that  of  Christ 
given  under  heaven  by  which  men  could  be  saved,  while  in 
Him  there  was  every  element  of  a  true  and  complete  salva- 
tion— it  was  for  this  most  sufficient  reason  that  he  determined 
"  not  to  know  anything  among  the  Corinthians  save  Jesus 
Christ  and  Him  Crucified."  In  himself  he  did  not  claim  to 
be  wiser  than  the  philosophers  of  Greece  —  of  itself  he  did 
not  suppose  that  his  preaching  had  more  power  than  the 
eloquence  of  the  orators  of  Greece — his  confidence  was  not 
in  himself  or  in  anything  of  his  own,  but  in  God  and  what 
God  had  given  him  to  proclaim ;  he  felt  that  God's  message 
was  superior  to  any  human  speculation ;  he  had  faith  in  the 
power  of  the  cross ;  he  was  convinced  that  Christ  taken  into 
any  human  life  would  carry  into  it  a  wisdom,  and  righteous- 
ness, and  sanctification,  and  redemption,  which  would  be  its 


CHRIST    MADE    UNTO    US    WISDOM.  217 

perfectly  adequate  and  efficacious  salvation,  and  that  nothing 
else  would ;  and  so  he  gloried  in  God  alone,  and  kept  closely 
to  the  preaching  of  Christ. 

There  were  people  who  thought  he  might  profitably  have 
imitated  admired  philosophers  and  popular  orators;  that  he 
should  have  had  a  wider  range  of  subjects  and  used  more 
enticing  words.  Those  foolish  Corinthians  have  many  succes- 
sors among  ourselves,  who  fancy  that  the  pulpit  would  gain 
greatly  in  power  if  ministers  would  only  discourse  more  about 
science  and  philosophy,  nature  and  history,  political  and  social 
reform,  and  the  various  so-called  questions  of  the  day.  But 
surely  for  six  days  in  the  week  we  have  quite  enough  of  all 
that,  and  surely  there  is  something  more  important  even  than 
all  that.  The  power  of  the  pulpit  will  most  certainly  not  be 
increased  by  ministers  forsaking  their  own  glorious  work,  the 
direct  preaching  of  Christ,  for  the  lecturing  on  lower  themes, 
or  for  the  work  of  politicians,  or  journalists,  who  are  still  more 
plentiful  among  us  than  were  philosophers  or  orators  in  Greece. 
The  power  of  the  pulpit  lies  in  preaching  Christ,  and  will  be 
strong  or  feeble  according  as  He  is  faithfully  and  zealously 
or  faithlessly  and  coldly  preached. 

God  has  given  us  in  Christ,  St  Paul  tells  us,  satisfaction  for 
all  the  wants  of  our  natures.  If  a  man  be  in  Christ,  Christ 
will  be  everything  to  him.  He  will  supply  every  great  want 
of  his  life,  everything  which  the  Divine  Law  demands  should 
be  in  his  life.  He  will  be  "  made  unto  us,"  as  our  text  says, 
"  wisdom,  righteousness,  sanctification,  and  redemption."  What 
more  can  a  man  need  than  these?  We  may  safely  say  that 
he  can  need  nothing  more  which  is  really  essential  to  him, 
and  all  these  every  man  will  receive  who  believes  and  abides 
in  Christ.  It  is  a  wonderfully  comprehensive  truth,  a  won- 
derfully precious  assurance.  Time  will  only  allow  me  to 
speak  of  a  part  of  it,  "Jesus  Christ,  who  of  God  is  made 
unto  us  wisdom."  May  it  be  a  word  of  comfort  and  of  help 
to  you. 

"  Jesus  Christ,  of  God  is  made  unto  us  wisdom."  We  sorely 
need  wisdom.  We  are  by  nature  foolish  as  to  the  highest 
concerns  of  our  being,  and  this  folly  is  a  heritage  of  woe. 
Without  wisdom  we  shall  not  get  any  other  great  spiritual 


218  CHRIST    MADE    UNTO    US    WISDOM. 

blessing,  for  we  shall  not  even  know  how  to  seek  it.  But 
Jesus  Christ  is  made  unto  us  wisdom — the  wisdom  that  supplies 
one  great  want  of  our  natures — the  wisdom  which  is  followed 
by  the  righteousness,  sanctification,  and  redemption,  which 
supply  all  the  other  great  wants  of  our  natures. 

"  The  world  by  wisdom,"  St  Paul  tells  us,  "  knew  not  God." 
As  a  matter  of  historical  fact,  reason,  unaided  by  a  special 
revelation,  failed  to  acquire  the  knowledge  of  God  which  man 
stood  in  need  of  as  a  moral  and  religious  being.  St  Paul 
had  in  view,  of  course,  chiefly  what  the  Greek  and  Eoman 
intellect  had  accomplished  in  this  direction,  and  clearly  he 
was  right  in  thinking  that  it  had  signally  failed.  The  wisdom 
of  the  ancient  world  at  its  very  best  fell  far  short  of  a  know- 
ledge of  God  capable  of  purifying  the  heart,  controlling  the 
passions,  stimulating  moral  ambition,  creating  a  spiritual  dread 
of  sin,  strengthening  the  feeling  of  personal  responsibility, 
and  consoling  or  fortifying  the  sufferer  under  present  pain  or 
in  the  prospect  of  death.  The  popular  religion  was  strangely 
childish  and  mean,  and  in  many  respects  most  sensual  and 
immoral.  The  worshippers  of  Jupiter  and  Juno,  of  Mars  and 
Venus,  and  the  gods  and  goddesses  who  were  supposed  to  be 
their  companions,  must  have  been  very  often  not  the  better 
but  the  worse  for  worshipping  such  beings.  Certainly  they 
could  find  no  elevating  ideal  or  correct  and  consistent  rule  of 
moral  life  among  the  capricious  and  unrighteous  and  impure 
objects  of  their  adoration.  It  was  not  from  the  popular 
religion,  the  idolatrous  polytheism  of  Greece  and  Eome,  that 
the  human  soul  in  those  lands  drew  spiritual  inspiration,  but 
from  philosophy,  from  reason,  apprehending  those  truths  of 
natural  religion  which  the  positive  religion  disfigured  and 
contradicted.  If  salvation  be  deliverance  from  darkness  to 
light,  from  sin  to  holiness,  from  love  of  the  world  to  love  of 
God,  no  sane  man  will  say  that  the  Greek  or  Roman  religion 
was  the  way  to  it  or  an  indication  of  the  way  to  it. 

There  were  a  few  great  men,  earnest  searchers  after  wisdom, 
who  rose  above  the  popular  religion,  got  wonderful  glimpses 
of  many  Divine  truths,  and  gave  to  the  world  noble  moral 
instructions  which  are  of  inestimable  value  even  to  this  day. 
There  is  no  need  to  depreciate  those  men  or  anything  which 


CHRIST    MADE    UNTO    US    WISDOM.  219 

they  did.  But  they  all  failed  to  turn  men  from  the  worship 
of  idols  to  the  service  of  the  true  God  ;  they  saw  too  clearly 
to  be  able  to  believe  that  the  popular  religion  was  true  but  not 
clearly  enough  to  know  what  to  put  in  its  place ;  they  found 
out  many  truths  but  not  the  ti'uth ;  they  did  not  show  to  the 
soul  a  fountain  of  cleansing,  healing,  and  life. 

But  it  may  be  imagined  that  the  wisdom  of  the  world  has 
greatly  increased  since  the  time  of  St  Paul,  and  that  as  our 
men  of  science  know  far  more  of  nature  and  history  than  the 
ablest  and  most  learned  of  his  contemporaries  they  may  suc- 
ceed where  ancient  thinkers  failed,  and  attain  to  what  will 
be  in  every  respect  an  adequate  wisdom,  thoroughly  satisfying 
at  once  the  claims  of  the  intellect  and  the  yearnings  of  the 
heart,  quickening  and  guiding  the  conscience,  and  subduing, 
and  purifying,  and  elevating  the  life.  But  this  is  by  no  means 
the  case.  The  experience  of  the  centuries  which  have  since 
elapsed  has  only  made  it  increasingly  manifest  that  the  world 
by  its  own  wisdom  cannot  know  God  or  find  the  way  of  salva- 
tion. When  the  ablest  men  of  our  own  day  unhappily  resolve 
to  reject  the  revelation  of  Divine  Wisdom  in  Jesus  Christ, 
and  to  oppose  to  it  a  wisdom  of  their  own,  do  we  find  this 
wisdom  of  theirs  to  be  any  truer  or  better  than  that  of  the 
Greek  or  Koman  sages?  No.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  often 
not  even  so  true  or  so  good.  The  wisdom  which  opposes  itself 
to  God's  wisdom  always  confounds  and  condemns  itself.  Even 
in  our  own  day  this  wisdom,  when  it  turns  away  from  a  God 
and  Father  revealed  and  reconciled  through  Jesus  Christ,  can 
only  point  instead  to  matter  and  motion — or  the  Universe — 
or  humanity — or  the  Unknowable — and  fails  to  tell  us  whether 
the  sighing  of  our  spirit  for  life  eternal  is  not  an  insane  de- 
lusion ;  whether  facts  move  towards  any  goal  of  moral  glory ; 
whether  aught  is  right  but  what  is  strong ;  whether  love  be 
not  imbecility ;  whether  all  men  are  not  made  in  vain.  Self- 
contradiction  and  confusion,  pretentious  feebleness  and  glaring 
foolishness,  these  are  the  results  of  the  efforts  of  the  human 
intellect  to  create  out  of  the  conclusions  of  the  most  advanced 
science  a  substitute  for  the  wisdom  offered  us  in  the  Gospel. 
It  is  now,  therefore,  more  evident  than  even  in  St  Paul's  day 
that  all  such  efforts  are  hopeless. 


220  CHRIST    MADE    UNTO    US   WISDOM. 

The  light  of  nature  and  the  works  of  creation  and  providence 
cannot  show  man  a  way  of  reconciliation  and  communion  with 
God.  No  man  by  mere  human  wisdom,  by  any  searching  into 
the  secrets  of  nature  or  providence,  can  find  it  out.  Mere 
human  wisdom  is  utter  folly  here,  and  if  man  may  be  wise  at 
all  in  this  connection  he  must  confess  his  natural  folly,  the 
powerlessness  of  his  own  reason,  and  consent  to  be  guided  by 
the  wisdom  of  God ;  or,  in  other  words,  to  accept  Christ  who  is 
the  wisdom  of  God  to  us  for  salvation,  who  is  God's  solution  of 
the  problem  of  our  salvation.  The  only  real  wisdom  possible 
to  man  must  from  the  very  nature  and  necessity  of  the  case  be 
the  wisdom  of  renouncing  his  own  wisdom.  If  he  say,  I  will 
solve  this  momentous  problem  for  myself,  without  help  from 
any  one,  and  especially  without  the  aid  and  without  the  light 
which  God  has  given  in  the  Gospel,  then  he  in  his  wisdom  is  a 
most  manifest  fool  whose  folly  will  ruin  him  ;  but  if  he  have  the 
candour  to  confess  his  own  folly,  to  admit  that  his  own  intellect 
is  powerless  here,  and  to  acknowledge  the  wisdom  of  God  and 
acquiesce  in  His  plan  of  salvation,  then,  in  the  very  act  of  con- 
fessing himself  foolish  he  is  made  wise,  for  Christ  is  made 
wisdom  unto  him.  It  is  a  hard  thing,  undoubtedly,  to  be 
brought  to  confess  ourselves  in  the  way  I  am  speaking  of  fools, 
but  there  is  a  glorious  reward  attached  to  this  exercise  of 
humility,  since  it  makes  us,  in  a  true  and  strict  sense,  partakers 
of  an  infinite  wisdom.  Christ  is  henceforth  within  us,  and 
unto  us  wisdom. 

Many  of  you  may  have  heard  this  story  about  Socrates,  one 
of  the  greatest  and  best  men  among  the  Greeks.  The  oracle 
at  Delphi  pronounced  him  the  wisest  of  men.  Socrates  could 
not  understand  it,  and  yet  he  was  unwilling  to  disbelieve  the 
oracle,  so  he  went  about  from  one  person  reputed  wise  to 
another,  in  order  to  be  able  to  say,  "  Here  is  a  wiser  man  than 
I  am,"  or,  at  least,  to  find  out  what  the  oracle  meant.  He  went 
to  many,  but  he  found  that  while  they  in  reality  knew  almost 
nothing  that  was  worth  knowing,  they  thought  they  knew 
a  great  deal,  and  were  very  angry  with  one  who  tried  to  con- 
vince them  of  their  ignorance.  So  that  at  last  he  came  to 
recognise  that  there  was  a  truth  in  what  had  been  said  about 
him.     To  use  nearly  his  own  words,  "he  left  them,  saying  to 


CHRIST   MADE    UNTO   US   WISDOM.  221 

himself,  '  I  am  wiser  than  these  men  ;  for  neither  they  nor  I,  it 
would  seem,  know  anything  valuable ;  but  they,  not  knowing, 
fancy  that  they  do  know  ;  I,  as  I  really  do  not  know,  so  I  do 
not  think  that  I  know ;  I  seem  therefore  to  be  in  one  small 
matter  wiser  than  they.'  " 

This  quite  illustrates  what  I  mean.  It  is  the  kind  of  spirit 
which,  in  its  degree,  and  about  less  important  questions,  was  in 
the  strange  man  Socrates ;  it  is  precisely  this  kind  of  spirit 
about  the  things  which  concern  our  highest  well-being  that 
makes  a  man  wise  in  the  Christian  sense.  The  most  ignorant 
person,  provided  he  only  know  that  he  must  renounce  his  own 
wisdom,  as,  what  on  subjects  pertaining  to  salvation  it  really  is, 
foolishness,  and  accept  what  is  disclosed  in  Christ  as  to  salva- 
tion, is  infinitely  wiser  than  the  most  able  or  learned  man  who 
trusts  solely  to  his  own  wisdom,  apart  from  Christ's  revealed 
work  and  will.  Both  of  them  are  foolish  and  ignorant,  but  the 
one  knows  it,  and,  in  consequence  of  knowing  it,  accepts  the 
salvation  which  is  in  Christ,  and  is  made  a  partaker  of  infinite 
wisdom;  the  other  does  not  know  it,  and  thinking  that  he 
is  wise  while  he  is  a  fool,  wanders  ruinously  astray. 

If,  my  friends,  we  would  thus  yield  ourselves  up  to  Christ, 
and  would  do  so,  not  at  one  time  nor  by  one  act  only,  but 
would  do  so  day  by  day,  and  in  all  respects,  allowing  ourselves 
to  be  guided  by  Him  habitually,  and  in  all  things,  we  should 
not  fail  to  learn  by  experience  that  as  he  who  loses  his  life  for 
Christ  finds  it,  so  he  who  surrenders  to  Him  his  reason  receives 
it,  enlightened  with  the  only  true  light,  filled  with  the  only  true 
wisdom.  The  self-surrender  of  the  reason  to  God  is  the  loss 
only  of  what  is  false  in  itself,  while  it  is  the  gain  of  what  is 
truth  in  God,  in  Christ,  and  in  itself.  It  is  wholly  different 
from  self-surrender  to  any  finite  or  imperfect  reason,  or  to 
a  blind  self-surrender  of  any  kind.  The  wisdom  of  God  offered 
us  in  Christ  is  the  pure  spiritual  truth,  the  perfect  wisdom, 
which  is  the  very  light  and  life  of  reason.  Christ  received  as 
our  wisdom  is  alone  capable  of  making  us  truly  wise,  and  if 
we  receive  Him  will  not  fail  to  do  so,  working  in  us  the  same 
mind  of  truthfulness,  reasonableness,  and  wisdom  which  was  in 
Himself.  Oh  !  that  we  may  receive  Him  with  rejoicing  hearts, 
and  sincere  self-surrender  of  ourselves  to  His  guidance;  that 


222  CHRIST    MADE   UNTO    US   WISDOM. 

we  may  be  emptied  of  all  conceit  of  a  wisdom  which  is  imagi- 
nary and  delusive,  in  order  that  we  may  be  filled  with  the 
wisdom  which  is  real  and  efficacious;  that  we  may  so  deny 
ourselves  as  to  gain  ourselves  ;  that  we  may  be  so  impoverished 
as  to  be  for  ever  enriched.  "  Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit ; 
for  theirs  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 


XX. 

CHRIST  MADE   UNTO   US   RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

"  Christ  Jesus,  who  of  God  is  made  unto  us  wisdom,  and  righteousness,  and 
sanctification,  and  redemption." — 1  Cor.  i.  30. 

MY  friends,  many  of  you  have  this  day  sat  at  a  communion 
table,  and  many  of  you,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  have  there 
enjoyed  true  communion  with  Christ  Jesus.  If  so,  the  best 
wish  I  can  form  for  you — and  the  most  appropriate  and  useful 
advice  I  can  give  you — is  that  you  seek  to  maintain  that  com- 
munion unbroken  ;  that  you  seek  to  abide  in  Christ  and  to 
have  Christ  ever  abiding  in  you.  There  is  no  other  good,  no 
other  blessing,  so  great  as  that  either  on  earth  or  in  heaven. 
It  is  the  pearl  of  great  price  for  the  sake  of  which  every 
wise  merchant  will  not  hesitate  to  sacrifice  all  else.  Christ  is 
Christianity,  and  only  those  who  are  in  Christ  are  Christians. 
But  if  a  man  be  in  Christ,  Christ  will  be  everything  to  him ;  in 
the  very  act  of  receiving  Christ  he  will  receive  whatever  he 
requires.  There  is  no  essential  want  of  the  human  soul  the 
supply  of  which  is  not  to  be  found  in  Christ ;  no  demand  of 
the  Divine  Law,  which  will  not  be  met  through  Him ;  no 
requirement  of  the  Christian  life  which  He  Himself  does  not 
afford  the  means  of  fulfilling. 

Such  is  the  great,  encouraging,  and  comforting  truth  which 
the  text  sets  before  us.  "  Christ  Jesus,  who  of  God  is  made  unto 
us  wisdom,  and  righteousness,  and  sanctification,  and  redemp- 
tion." Wisdom,  righteousness,  sanctification,  and  redemption 
— what  more  than  these  can  a  man  need  either  for  time  or 
eternity  ?  We  may  safely  say  that  he  can  absolutely  need 
nothing  more,  and  all  these  every  man  will  receive  who  believes 
and  abides  in  Christ.  If,  then,  my  friends,  any  of  you  think- 
ing of  the  Christian  professions  which  you  have  this  day  made, 
and  feeling  at  the  same  time  your  own  weakness  and  unworthi- 
ness,  are  asking  anxiously,  How  may  I  live  as  I  wish  and  have 

223 


224  CHRIST    MADE    UNTO    US    RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

vowed  to  do  ? — how  may  I  honour  God,  follow  Christ,  love 
and  help  my  brethren  of  mankind  as  a  true  disciple  of  Jesus 
must  ? — how  is  what  I  have  been  doing  this  day  to  be  made 
not  a  sin  and  a  shame  to  me,  but  the  blessing  and  honour  it 
must  have  been  meant  to  be  ?  I  would  refer  you  to  my  text 
as  a  full  and  glorious  answer  warranting  you  to  rise  above  all 
doubts  and  fears,  and  to  go  forward  with  good  hope  and 
courage. 

So  long  as  you  look  merely  at  yourselves,  at  your  duties,  at 
your  own  poor  resources  and  unaided  powers,  you  may  well 
despair,  and  indeed  cannot  reasonably  do  otherwise  than  de- 
spair, but  when  you  look  to  Christ  as  set  forth  in  the  text — 
when  you  look  to  Christ  as  you  are  invited  and  encouraged  in 
God's  Word  to  do — then  despair  is  seen  to  be  foolish  and  wrong, 
then  a  bright  and  joyous  prospect  opens  up  to  you,  for  in 
Christ  you  are  offered  all  that  you  truly  need  or  can  reasonably 
seek.  Do  you  feel  your  lack  of  wisdom — your  blindness  of 
mind  and  perversity  of  judgment  as  to  spiritual  things,  as  to 
duty  and  religion  ?  Well,  it  is  true  that  you  lack  wisdom,  and 
certainly  you  will  never  of  yourselves  make  yourselves  wise  ; 
but  turn  to  Christ  so  that  His  light  may  shine  on  your  dark- 
ness ;  let  the  mind  which  was  in  Him  be  in  you ;  accept  and 
follow  His  offered  guidance  ;  and  He  will  be  made  wisdom  unto 
you,  and  you  will  become  divinely  reasonable  in  your  mind  and 
conduct ;  you  will  be  children  of  the  light  walking  in  the  light. 
Do  you  feel  your  lack  of  righteousness — that  your  heart  is  far 
from  being  affected  towards  God  and  towards  His  law  as  it 
ought  to  be — that  the  relation  in  which  you  stand  to  God,  and 
consequently  to  all  the  manifestations  and  creatures  of  God,  is 
to  a  large  extent  a  wrong  one,  a  deplorable  one,  implying  a 
load  of  guilt,  entailing  a  heritage  of  woe  ?  The  feeling  is  only 
too  well  founded  ;  and  by  no  efforts  or  works  of  your  own  can 
you  put  yourselves  right  with  God,  so  as  to  realise  that  His 
love  abides  in  you  and  your  love  rests  on  Him,  your  guilt  being 
forgiven,  and  your  hearts  being  renewed.  But  if  you  will  only 
practically  recognise  your  moral  perversity,  your  spiritual 
poverty,  your  inherent  weakness  and  helplessness  as  regards 
justification  in  God's  sight,  by  laying  aside  all  trust  in  your 
own  performances  and  merits,  and  turning  in  humble  faith  to 


CHRIST    MADE    UNTO    US   RIGHTEOUSNESS.  225 

Christ  as  offered  to  you  in  the  Gospel,  you  will  become  par- 
takers of  His  righteousness,  and  He  will  be  made  righteousness 
unto  you,  a  thoroughly  real  and  a  perfectly  satisfying  righteous- 
ness, which  both  the  Divine  Word  and  your  own  consciousness 
will  tell  you  is  accepted  and  approved  of  God. 

Do  you  feel  your  lack  of  holiness — that  your  dispositions  are 
largely  selfish,  your  motives  impure,  your  conduct  ignoble? 
Every  one  of  us  has  great  reason  to  feel  thus,  and  this  want 
also  Christ  alone  can  satisfy.  The  Christian  grows  in  holiness 
only  by  looking  steadily  at  Christ,  by  making  Christ's  character 
increasingly  his  own,  and  so  manifesting  Christ  as  it  were  in 
all  the  relations  of  life.  An  act  is  good  only  when  it  is  what 
Christ  would  have  done  if  placed  in  the  same  circumstances  as 
we  are  in  when  doing  it,  and  when  our  motives  to  its  perform- 
ance are  what  His  would  have  been.  Only  in  so  far  as  Christ 
is  taken  into  the  soul,  and  His  principles  made  ours,  and  His 
virtues  established  in  us  and  shining  out  in  what  we  do,  are 
our  lives  sanctified  lives.  Every  feature  of  true  holiness  in  the 
believer  is  one  which  must  have  been  transferred  from  Christ 
to  himself — which  must  have  been  made  his  through  the  Holy 
Spirit  imitating  in  him  the  beauties  of  Christ.  The  life  of 
Christ  in  the  believer  is  what  sanctifies  his  life,  is  the  source 
and  substance  of  his  spiritual  life,  so  that  there  is  goodness 
and  holiness  in  the  believer  only  in  the  measure  in  which 
Christ  is  made  goodness  and  holiness — in  which  Christ  is  made 
sanctification — unto  him. 

Do  you  think  of  the  powers  within  and  around  you,  hostile 
and  dangerous  to  your  faith  and  virtue,  to  the  peace  of  your 
souls,  to  your  eternal  welfare  ?  Do  you  tremble  because  of 
the  deceitfulness  and  perversity  of  your  hearts,  the  lusts  of  the 
flesh,  the  temptations  of  the  world,  the  snares  of  Satan  ?  Well, 
assuredly  these  are  no  weak  foes ;  they  are  all  much  stronger 
than  you ;  but,  God  be  thanked,  they  are  also  all  much  weaker 
than  Christ,  and  Christ  is  set  forth  as  one  who  is  made  of  God 
unto  you  redemption.  Christ  has  done  battle  with  your  ene- 
mies and  conquered  them  for  you ;  He  is  still  fighting  and 
conquering  for  you.  The  decisive  victory  was  won  on  Calvary, 
and  now  if  you  will  but  put  your  trust  in  Him  who  suffered 
and   bled   there,   and   serve   under   Him,  you  will  find   that 

P 


226  CHRIST    MADE    UNTO    US    RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

numerous  and  powerful  as  your  foes  may  be,  they  are  really  a 
defeated  and  flying  army,  followed  by  One  who  has  everywhere 
shown  Himself  to  be  irresistible — to  have  the  might  as  well  as 
the  right  to  rule  the  w^orld.  The  victory  has  been  won,  and 
although  the  conquest  is  not  completed  it  is  going  on ;  yes, 
even  when  you  feel  it  not  it  is  going  on,  and  within  a  little 
time  it  will  be  perfected,  and  you  will  see  all  the  host  of  your 
enemies  who  pursued  you  vanquished  and  dead  as  Israel  saw 
the  Egyptians  lie  dead  upon  the  shore  of  the  Eed  Sea,  and  you 
will  be  able  to  sing  as  they,  "  The  Lord  hath  triumphed  glori- 
ously." There  is  no  foe  without  or  within  you  whom  you  need 
despair  of  being  able  through  Christ  to  meet.  Neither  earth 
nor  the  gates  of  hell  can  prevail  against  you  so  long  as  through 
reliance  on  His  redeeming  work  you  are  in  the  strong  tower, 
which  His  name,  His  mercy,  and  protection  afford  you.  As 
the  weakest  persons,  as  old  men  and  feeble  women  and  young 
children,  who  could  do  nothing  of  themselves  to  resist  or  repel 
an  enemy,  may  be  in  a  place  so  fortified  as  to  be  perfectly  safe, 
so  is  the  feeblest  of  you  who  is  in  Christ,  whose  life  rests  on 
the  sure  foundation  of  His  sacrifice  unto  death,  beyond  the 
reach  of  harm  from  any  enemy,  Christ  being  made  of  God  unto 
you  redemption. 

If  then,  my  friends,  you  will  only  receive  and  act  on  the 
truth  contained  in  the  text  you  need  not  be  dismayed  even 
when  you  think  of  the  requirements  implied  in  the  avowal  of 
allegiance  to  Christ.  The  professions  of  faith  which  you  have 
this  day  made  at  the  table  of  the  Lord  need  not  be  false  nor 
need  they  become  false.  The  faith  which  makes  Christ  yours 
can  keep  Christ  yours,  and  with  Christ  as  yours,  the  text  is  an 
assurance,  that  you  will  be  found  true  and  faithful  disciples, 
neither  deluded  yourselves  nor  deceiving  others — as  Satan  is 
ready  to  suggest  to  you,  endeavouring  to  pervert  your  con- 
sciences, and  rob  you  of  your  comfort  of  mind,  and  cast  you 
down  from  your  hopes  in  Christ  Jesus — in  no  sense  that,  but 
true  and  faithful  men  and  women,  sharing  in  a  wisdom,  a 
righteousness,  a  sanctification,  a  redemption,  infinite  and  with- 
out a  fault. 

The  truth  in  the  text  is,  however,  much  too  comprehensive 
for  me  to  treat  of  it  to-night  as  a  whole.     I  shall,  therefore,  in 


CHRIST    MADE    UNTO    US    RIGHTEOUSNESS.  227 

what  remains  to  be  said  consider  only  one  portion  of  its  precious 
contents.  Not  long  ago,  in  a  neighbouring  church,  from  this 
same  text  I  tried  to  show  how  Christ  Jesus  is  of  God  made 
unto  us  ivisdom.  Here  and  now  I  would  desire  to  speak  of 
how  He  is  made  unto  us  righteousness.  May  God  grant  His 
blessing  on  what  is  said. 

"  Christ  Jesus  is  of  God  made  unto  us  righteousness."  Man 
is  a  fallen  creature ;  he  has  lost  original  righteousness  ;  he  is 
by  nature  unrighteous :  he  is  alienated  from  the  author  of  his 
being ;  he  is  disobedient  to  the  higher  laws  of  his  being.  In 
the  latter  part  of  last  century  and  the  earlier  part  of  the 
present  century  rationalists  and  sceptics  were  wont  to  de- 
nounce the  scriptural  doctrine  of  man's  natural  depravity,  and 
to  descant  on  the  innocent  savage  and  the  native  goodness  of 
humanity.  In  the  present  day  we  hear  no  talk  of  the  kind 
from  those  who  have  any  pretensions  to  thoughtfulness  or 
education  ;  anthropology,  the  development  theory,  acquaintance 
with  the  laws  of  heredity,  have  swept  the  nonsense  away  ;  and 
now  the  doctrine  of  original  sin  is  generally  recognised  to  be 
in  complete  accordance  with  the  findings  even  of  science  ;  to 
be  a  doctrine  which  must  in  substance  be  accepted,  and  which 
is  only  likely  to  be  denied  when  the  fact  which  it  denotes  is 
exaggerated,  or  magnified  beyond  what  Scripture  warrants. 

Man's  nature  may  have  many  amiable  qualities,  but  it  has  a 
central  fault  which  corrupts  it  as  a  whole,  which  taints  every 
affection  and  action,  however  much  good  may  remain.  The 
current  of  man's  will  does  not  naturally  run  in  the  channel  of 
God's  will,  but  in  a  contrary  channel,  one  of  forgetfulness  to- 
wards God,  of  worldliness,  of  selfishness,  of  sinfulness.  Thus 
"the  natural  man  receiveth  not  the  things  of  the  Spirit  of 
God."  Thus  "the  carnal  heart  is  enmity  against  God,"  and 
is  "alienated  from  the  life  of  God."  Hence  the  soul  when  it 
follows  merely  its  own  will  and  inclination  cannot  have  com- 
munion or  peace  with  God,  but  is  in  an  utterly  wrong  relation 
to  God,  of  which  it  cannot  be  clearly  conscious  without  great 
misery,  shame,  and  fear.  It,  of  course,  cannot  wish  to  realise 
its  separation  and  alienation  from  God  by  reason  of  its  sinful- 
ness of  nature  and  conduct,  and,  in  fact,  seeks  by  many  poor 
shifts  and  artifices  to  delude  itself ;  but  once  it  is  quickened 


228  CHRIST   MADE    UNTO    US   RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

to  see  itself  truly,  to  look  upon  sin  as  it  really  is  and  feel 
what  it  means  and  involves,  there  is  no  more  possibility  of 
its  escaping  this  most  awful  and  intolerable  thought  that 
its  guilt  must  necessarily  make  it  the  object  of  God's  just 
indignation. 

It  cannot  excuse  its  conduct.  It  cannot  say  it  has  no  sin  ; 
it  feels  that  if  it  does  the  truth  is  not  in  it.  That  little  sen- 
tence of  St  John :  "  If  we  say  that  we  have  no  sin  we  deceive 
ourselves,  and  the  truth  is  not  in  us,"  which  to  the  indifferent 
seems  trivial  enough,  acquires  to  the  morally  awakened  a 
terrible  significance.  He  who  has  once  felt  the  agony  that 
trivial-looking  verse  can  give  begins  to  understand  in  some 
measure  what  the  gnawing  of  the  never-dying  worm  may  be, 
and  shudders  at  the  thought  of  having  it  for  ever  tearing  at 
his  heart. 

And  man  can  no  more  atone  for  his  conduct  than  he  can 
excuse  it.  He  cannot  justify  himself  in  any  way  :  neither  by 
outward  rites  and  ceremonies  nor  yet  by  works  of  real  righteous- 
ness and  holiness.  The  outward  rites  and  ceremonies  even 
when  done  turn  out  to  be  of  no  value.  The  conscience  cannot 
be  appeased  by  them ;  the  reason  pronounces  them  vain ;  the 
heart  remains  unsatisfied.  The  works  of  real  righteousness  and 
holiness  we  have  not.  It  is  out  of  our  power  to  perform  them, 
and  consequently  out  of  our  power  to  present  them.  We 
cannot  give  to  God  what  we  have  not,  and  true  holiness  we 
have  not.  All  that  we  attempt  is  mixed  up  with  a  great  deal 
of  evil.  We  need  to  pray  that  God  would  forgive  us  our 
prayers ;  and  we  need  to  repent  of  our  repentance  itself.  By 
the  works  of  the  law  can  no  flesh  be  justified. 

How,  then,  can  we  enter  into  a  right  relation  to  God  so  as 
to  be  justified  by  Him  ?  What  righteousness  is  accessible  or 
possible  to  us  ?  The  answer  of  Scripture  is  clear,  and  it  is  in 
perfect  harmony  with  the  findings  of  reason  and  conscience, 
We  can  be  justified  only  by  faith ;  righteous  only  through  union 
with  the  righteous  Christ.  So  long  as  a  man  deems  himself 
capable  of  establishing  in  his  own  name  and  strength  a  right 
to  salvation ;  so  long  as  he  is  under  the  delusion  that  he  can  so 
obey  the  law  as  to  deserve  salvation ;  so  long  is  he  hopelessly 
under  the  power  and  curse  of  the  law.     But  the  moment  he 


CHRIST    MADE    UNTO    US   RIGHTEOUSNESS.  229 

comes  to  feel  that  he  has  no  righteousness  of  his  own  ;  that  he 
cannot  fulfil  any  one  demand  which  the  law  makes  upon  him ; 
that  do  what  he  will  the  only  wages  due  him  must  be  the  terrible 
wages  of  sin ;   the  moment,  I  say,  that  he  feels  this,  and  in 
consequence  of  feeling  it,  casts  himself  solely  and  wholly  on 
God's  mercy  as  revealed  in  Jesus  Christ,  that  moment — by  that 
very  act — the  law  loses  the  hold  which  it  had  upon  him  to  con- 
demnation ;  Christ's  sacrifice  thus  accepted  unloosens  its  grasp  ; 
Christ's  whole  mediatorial  work  stands  between  him  and  it; 
Christ's  merits  cover  and  protect  him  from  the  consequences  of 
his  own  demerits.     The  man  who,  conscious  of  his  own  weakness 
and  un worthiness,  renounces  all  trust  in  himself  and  places  his 
whole  trust  in  God  as  justifying  and  saving,  as  giving  forgiveness 
and  grace,  purity  and  strength,  through  Jesus  Christ,  is  a  man 
so  attached,  or  united,  to  Christ,  that  God  cannot  regard  him 
as  existing  out  of  Jesus   Christ  and   only  in  his  own  sinful 
individuality ;  and  he  cannot  but  rise  through  Christ  into  a  new 
life  of  confidence  and  love  towards  God,  of  fellowship  and  peace 
with  the  Father  of  Spirits.    In  one  word,  Christ  is  through  faith, 
by  the  gracious  ordination  of  God,  made  unto  him  righteousness. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  attempt  to  determine  how  Christ's 
righteousness   is  made  over  to  one  who  thus,  by  renouncing 
every  pretension  to  a  righteousness  of  his  own,  humbles  himself 
to  accept  it.     It  may  be  by  imputation — by  a  forensic  act — a 
legal  substitution.     That  is  a  theory  for  which  very  much  can 
be  said,  and  which  is  not  to  be  lightly  rejected.     But  it  is  not 
what  is  afiirmed  in  the  text.     The  text  states  a  fact  and  gives 
no  theory  about  it.     It  declares  even  that  Christ  is  made  unto 
us  wisdom  and  sanctification  no  less  than  righteousness,  although 
no  one  would  maintain  that  He  is  made  our  wisdom  by  His 
wisdom,  and  our  sanctification  by  His  holiness,  imputed  to  us. 
What  is,  however,  of  essential  importance  to  us  as  sinners  who 
need  to  be  forgiven  and  received  as  children  of  God,  is  the  fact 
expressed   by   the   words  "  Christ   is   made   of   God  unto   us 
righteousness " ;    not   any   theory   or   explanation    of  the  fact. 
That  fact    is    the    glorious   one   that,    although    a   self-made 
righteousness  is  impossible  to  us,  a  perfect  God-given  right- 
eousness is  placed  within  our  reach.      Living  faith  in  Christ, 
loving  union  with  Christ,  makes  it  ours. 


230  CHRIST    MADE    UNTO    US   RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

The  same  faith,  I  must  add,  which  makes  Christ  this  to  us 
at  first  continues  to  make  Him  the  same  to  us  ever  after. 
Faith  is  not  merely  an  act  to  be  put  forth  only  once.  The  faith 
which  is  implanted  in  us  by  the  Holy  Spirit  is  meant  to  become 
a  fixed  principle  and  to  grow  ever  stronger,  more  active,  more 
fruitful.  Faith  even  as  appropriation  of  the  righteousness  of 
Christ  for  the  forgiveness  of  sin  and  reconciliation  with  God 
is  not  to  be  a  momentary,  transitory  state,  but  a  settled  and 
abiding  condition  of  soul. 

True  it  may  be,  as  divines  say,  that  one  act  of  faith  justifies 
completely — that  justification  is  not  a  matter  of  degrees — but, 
none  the  less  is  it  true  also  that  our  continued  justification  is 
faith.  To  be  one  with  God  in  Christ  through  faith — through 
a  sincere  self-surrendering  trust  which  cordially  accepts  the 
will  of  God  for  our  salvation  as  it  is  freely  offered  to  us  in 
the  Gospel — is  the  only  real  righteousness  to  which  we  can 
hope  to  attain.  It  is  one,  however,  quite  adequate  to  our 
needs ;  one  which  sets  us  in  a  right  relationship  to  God,  frees 
us  from  the  bondage  of  the  law,  and  confers  on  us  all  the 
privileges  of  sonship.  Its  sufficiency  is  a  most  certain,  most 
comforting,  and  most  glorious  fact.  And  that  righteousness 
is  inseparable  from  Christian  faith.  It  is  attained  through 
faith  in  Christ,  and  can  be  attained  no  otherwise.  Therefore 
we  may  well  attach  high  value  to  such  faith. 

But  let  us  not  feel  too  sure  that  we  have  it.  Let  us  not 
be  over-confident  that  what  we  consider  our  faith  is  genuine 
Christian  faith — the  faith  which  the  Gospel  demands.  It  may 
be,  on  the  contrary,  a  bare  naked  assent,  a  mere  intellectual 
conclusion,  in  which  affection  and  will  have  no  part.  We 
may  mistake  for  faith  in  Christ  what  is  an  entirely  different 
thing, — not  the  faith  which  accepts,  receives,  and  rests  on 
Christ  alone,  but  the  faith  that  we  have  that  faith  when  we 
have  it  not.  Our  faith  may  be  a  delusion  and  snare,  not  the 
real  and  direct,  vital  and  active,  faith  in  Christ,  which  can 
alone  unite  us  with  Him  and  make  us  the  habitual  recipients 
of  the  redeeming  grace  of  God. 

What  has  been  our  own  conscious  experience  as  to  faith  ? 
Have  we  always  felt  it  to  be  as  efficacious  as  we  expected, 
or  always  found  it  to  be  just  what  we  considered  it  to  be  ? 


CHRIST    MADE    UNTO   US    RIGHTEOUSNESS.  231 

Have  we  never,  as  we  thought,  surrendered  ourselves  entirely 
to  Christ  ?  never  at  any  crisis  in  our  spiritual  history  so 
earnestly  put  our  trust  in  Him  as  to  have  then,  and  perhaps 
for  some  considerable  time  afterwards,  felt  the  strength  of  sin 
so  weakened  in  us  and  the  power  of  grace  so  operative  in  us 
that  we  could  greatly  rejoice  in  God  as  our  reconciled  Father 
and  vividly  feel  ourselves  to  be  His  redeemed  children  ?  If 
we  have  had  no  such  experience  there  is  reason  to  fear  that  we 
may  have  had  no  true  faith ;  and  we  ought  to  make  sure  that 
we  have  it  if  we  would  be  true  Christians.  But  let  me  suppose, 
what  is  likely  enough,  that  we  have  really  had  it.  Then  I 
must  ask.  Has  it  never  been  found  that  there  has  been  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  self-deception  in  our  experience  ? — has 
it  always  remained  with  us  ? — has  our  confidence  never  gradu- 
ally, or  even  perhaps  i-apidly,  come  to  be  shaken  ? — has  our 
faith  not  sometimes  or  often  failed,  and  the  joy  which  it  had 
brought  with  it  vanished,  and  a  sense  of  being  under  the 
dominion  of  sin  and  the  condemnation  of  the  law  again  laid 
hold  of  us  ?  Comparatively  few,  I  imagine,  can  affirm  that  it 
has  not  been  so  in  their  case.  To  fall  away  from  faith  and  the 
righteousness  which  is  of  faith,  and  to  fall  into  sin  and  aliena- 
tion from  God  and  feel  one's  self  in  consequence  a  slave  to 
the  law  instead  of  God's  child,  is  no  uncommon  experience. 

It  is,  however,  a  very  trying  and  painful  experience, — one 
very  apt  to  lead  to  spiritual  despair.  Those  who  are  in  this 
state  are  those  who  know  that  there  is  no  righteousness  unto 
salvation  to  be  attained  except  that  which  is  secured  through 
faith.  And  yet  faith  as  regards  them  aj^pears  to  have  failed. 
They  can  certainly  no  longer  rest  on  their  past  faith,  sufficient 
as  they  once  felt  it  to  be,  for  from  that  they  have  fallen  away. 
Hence  all  their  present  trouble.  But  that  trouble  itself  may 
well  be  salutary.  There  are  precious  lessons  in  it.  It  teaches 
the  difference  between  faith  in  Christ  and  faith  in  faith ;  it 
teaches,  that  is  to  say,  that  what  men  have  to  trust  in  is 
not  faith  as  mere  faith,  or  faith  as  theirs,  but  the  object  of 
their  faith,  God  as  revealed  in  Christ.  It  teaches  also  that  in 
all  such  cases  as  I  have  referred  to  what  is  really  to  blame 
is  not  faith  itself,  but  either  error  or  sin  mixed  with  faith, 
or  the  falling  away  from  faith  through  weakness  and  instability 


232  CHRIST    MADE    UNTO    US   RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

of  character.  The  best  advice,  nay  the  only  good  advice,  one 
can  give  to  those  who  have,  in  the  way  indicated,  become 
doubtful  of  the  efficacy  of  faith  in  Christ,  is  that  they  should 
cast  away  their  doubts,  start  afresh  with  a  stronger  and  more 
earnest  faith,  renounce  all  vain  confidence  in  themselves,  and 
turn  to  Christ  with  a  more  entire  and  exclusive  trust. 

The  only  remedy  which  can  avail  them  is  that  which  St 
John  has  so  clearly  prescribed,  when  he  says,  "  If  any  man 
sin,  we  have  an  Advocate  with  the  Father,  Jesus  Christ  the 
righteous :  and  He  is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins ;  and  not 
for  ours  only,  but  also  for  the  whole  world."  Mark  you,  it  is 
not,  "If  any  man  have  sinned  before  he  became  a  Christian ; " 
it  is  "  if  any  man  sin "  ;  if  he  sin  now ;  if  he  sin  after  having 
professed  faith  in  Christ  and  while  a  member  of  the  Church 
of  Christ;  then  the  remedy  is  still  faith.  It  is  not  for  "any 
particular  class  or  classes  of  men  "  ;  it  is  for  "  any  man  "  ;  for 
all  men — Christian  or  non-Christian.  It  is  the  propitiation  for 
the  sins  of  the  whole  Church  and  of  the  whole  world ;  for  those 
who  receive  and  for  those  who  reject  it.  Faith  is  the  only 
means  of  receiving  it.  And  since  our  sins  are  so  many  that 
we  are  in  constant  need  of  receiving  it  there  is  a  con- 
stant call  on  us  for  faith, — the  faith  which  renounces  sin, 
secures  forgiveness,  and  can  alone  bring  peace  to  the  troubled 
conscience. 

Continued  faith  so  as  to  be  always  present  faith  is,  I  remark 
in  conclusion,  the  only  faith  which  can  give  us  a  true  sense  of 
our  justification  in  virtue  of  acceptance  of  the  righteousness  of 
Christ.  It  is  only  perseverance  in  faith  which  warrants  a  man 
to  believe  that  he  ever  had  true  faith.  It  is  said  that  Cromwell 
on  his  death- bed  found  repose  in  the  thought  that  he  once,  long 
before,  had  been  the  subject  of  Divine  grace.  I  do  not  know 
that  the  story  is  true,  and  indeed  believe  it  to  be  more  than 
doubtful ;  but  what  is  certain  is  that  despair  itself  is  to  be 
preferred  to  comfort  resting  on  so  treacherous  a  foundation. 
Better  pass  into  the  eternal  world,  like  the  good  and  pious  poet 
Cowper,  with  the  dark  and  horrible  conviction  that  he  had  been 
by  an  eternal  decree  doomed  to  perdition,  than  pass  into  it  satis- 
fied with  so  fatally  delusive  a  reason  as  that  you  must  be  saved 
because  you  once  had  faith.    The  first  glimpse  of  eternity  would 


CHRIST    MADE    UNTO    US    RIGHTEOUSNESS.  233 

show  poor  Cowper  how  needlessly  he  had  been  distrusting 
God's  mercy  and  tormenting  himself.  The  first  glimpse  of 
eternity  will  show  also  the  folly  of  ever  having  found 
any  satisfaction  in  the  remembrance  of  a  faith  which  had 
been  lost. 

The  Scriptures  teach  both  faith  and  perseverance  in  faith, 
but  they  never  teach  us  to  say,  "  I  have  believed,  therefore  I 
shall  persevere  "  ;  on  the  contrary  they  teach  us  to  say,  "  I  have 
persevered,  therefore  I  have  believed."  They  do  not  teach  us, 
that  is  to  say,  to  argue  from  faith  to  perseverance,  but  from 
perseverance  to  faith.  They  do  not  make  faith  a  proof  of  the 
certainty  of  perseverance,  but  perseverance  the  proof  of  the 
genuineness  of  faith.  Abide  in  faith  then — abide  in  Christ 
then — if  ye  would  know  in  any  measure  the  blessedness  of  the 
man  to  whom  the  Lord  imputeth  not  sin.  Christ  is  made  of 
God  unto  us  righteousness,  a  complete  and  continuing  and  ever- 
present  righteousness,  but  only  through  a  constantly  active 
faith.  An  abiding  faith  can  alone  secure  you  abiding  com- 
munion with  God  in  Christ,  the  abiding  peace  of  forgiven 
hearts,  and  that  abiding  love  to  God  which  is  the  source  of 
holy  lives.  May  God  add  His  blessing  to  what  has  been  said. 
Amen. 


XXI. 

CHRIST   MADE   UNTO   US    SANCTIFICATION. 

"  Christ  Jesus,  who  of  God  is  made  unto  us  wisdom,  and  righteousness,  and 
sanctification,  and  redemption." — 1  CoR.  i.  30. 

I  HAVE  already  spoken  from  this  pulpit  on  the  words, 
"Christ  Jesus,  who  of  God  is  made  unto  us  wisdom" ; 
and  also  on  the  words,  "  Christ  Jesus,  who  of  God  is  made 
unto  us  righteousness  ";  and  now,  not  inappropriately  I  trust,  at 
the  close  of  the  sacred  services  in  which  you  have  this  day 
been  engaged,  I  would  direct  your  minds  for  a  little  to  the 
great  and  blessed  truth  expressed  in  the  words,  "  Christ  Jesus, 
who  of  God  is  made  unto  us  sanctification." 

If  you  have  truly  come  unto  Christ  you  will  assuredly  seek 
to  abide  in  Him ;  and  to  have  learned  the  supreme  importance 
of  this — the  supreme  importance  of  continuous  spiritual  com- 
munion with  God  in  Christ — is  to  have  learned  the  central 
and  most  valuable  secret  of  life,  even  what  true  life  is,  and 
whence  to  obtain  it,  alike  for  the  common  needs  of  every 
hour  and  for  the  highest  needs  of  eternity.  Our  intellects 
are  by  nature  spiritually  dark  and  erring,  and  can  only  find 
light  and  guidance  in  Christ  whom  God  has  set  forth  unto 
us  as  wisdom.  Our  consciences  testify  of  a  broken  law,  of  a 
wrong  relationship  to  God  and  all  God's  creatures,  of  a  thick 
cloud  of  unforgiven  sin  hiding  the  light  of  Divine  favour,  of 
an  ever  increasing  load  of  guilt  pressing  the  soul  down  into 
despair;  and  the  only  sure  ground  which  we  can  have  that 
law  has  been  vindicated,  the  wrong  relationship  righted,  the 
cloud  dispelled,  the  load  unloosed,  and  that  pardon  and  peace 
have  simply  to  be  accepted,  is  the  work  and  sacrifice  of  Him 
whom  God  has  given  to  be  our  righteousness.  Our  flesh  is 
weak  and  lustful,  our  hearts  impure,  our  desires  corrupt,  our 
wills  perverse,  and  we  cannot  of  ourselves  free  ourselves  from 
the  evil  that  is  within  us,  from  the  body  of  death  which  we 

234 


CHRIST    MADE    UNTO    US    SANCTIFICATION.         235 

carry  about  with  us,  aud  live  soberly,  righteously,  and  godly 
in  the  present  evil  world,  as  we  are  bound  to  do ;  yet  are  we 
by  no  means  left  helpless  and  hopeless,  for  God  has  sent  us 
Christ  and  Christ  has  sent  us  the  Spirit,  and  Christ  formed 
in  us  through  the  Spirit,  is  just  the  holiness  demanded  of  us. 
From  ignorance,  folly,  and  error  Christ  our  wisdom — from 
guilt,  restlessness,  and  despair  Christ  our  righteousness — from 
selfishness,  lust,  pride,  worldliness,  and  all  the  powers  and 
forms  of  sin  Christ  our  sanctification — from  these  and  whatever 
other  evils  there  may  be  than  these,  Christ  our  redemption 
has  been  given  of  God  to  deliver  us — for  in  Him  there  is  a 
complete  redemption,  an  absolute  salvation.  In  Him  we  have 
all  we  need ;  all  the  treasures  of  God's  grace  and  goodness ; 
the  true  and  full  satisfaction  of  every  want. 

Sanctification  is  closely  connected  both  with  wisdom  and 
righteousness.  To  accept  Christ  as  one  of  these  we  must 
accept  Him  as  all  of  them.  What  we  have  to  receive  is  a 
whole  Christ,  not  a  divided  Christ.  We  cannot,  for  example, 
take  Christ  as  our  wisdom,  the  light  of  our  minds,  without 
taking  Him  at  the  same  time,  and  in  the  same  measure,  as 
our  sanctification,  for  the  light  to  be  found  in  Him  is  essen- 
tially pure  and  purifying,  the  wisdom  due  to  His  indwelling 
aud  inworking  in  us  is  a  direct  and  powerful  means  of 
producing  holiness  of  life.  Yea,  what  is  Christian  wisdom, 
but,  on  the  one  hand,  a  condition  of  holiness,  the  practical 
knowledge  which  enables  us  to  avoid  what  is  unholy  and  to 
desire  and  do  what  is  holy;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  a  part 
of  holiness,  holiness  in  the  understanding  and  reason  ?  If  you 
would  find  holiness  in  Christ,  neglect  not,  then,  to  seek  in 
Him  also  wisdom,  right-mindedness,  seriousness  and  sobriety 
of  judgment,  power  to  discern  all  that  regards  your  moral 
and  spiritual  life  in  the  Divine  light  of  the  truth  as  it  is 
in  Christ. 

In  like  manner,  pardon  and  holiness,  justification  and  sancti- 
fication, are  inseparable.  It  is,  at  the  most,  only  in  idea  that 
we  can  say  the  one  must  go  before  the  other ;  in  reality,  they 
spring  at  once  from  the  same  root  or  source.  The  same  faith 
which  obtains  for  us  pardon  produces  the  only  genuine  holi- 
ness.    Christ  presents  Himself  to  us  whenever  He  comes  to 


236  CHRIST    MADE    UNTO    US    SANCTIFICATION. 

US  as  alike  our  justification  and  our  sanctification.  We  do 
not  need  to  wait  until  we  have  a  certain  measure  of  holiness 
before  we  may,  without  presumption,  expect  the  forgiveness 
of  our  sins.  Presumption  lies  all  the  other  way.  It  is  the 
daring  to  think  of  worthiness  at  all  in  connection  with  any 
measure  of  personal  holiness,  instead  of  trusting  solely  to 
Christ's  finished  work.  Unless  we  consent  to  seek  for  God's 
mercy  and  grace  in  the  name  of  Christ  and  not  in  the  name 
of  works  of  our  own,  we  can  never  take  one  single  onward 
step  in  the  path  of  holiness.  On  the  other  hand,  we  do  not 
need  to  wait  for  a  sense  of  pardon,  for  some  assurance  of 
justification,  in  Christ,  before  we  turn  to  Him  for  holiness, 
for  sanctification.  We  can  have  no  desire  for  the  pardon  of 
our  sins,  as  distinct  from  a  mere  selfish  wish  of  deliverance 
from  their  painful  consequences,  unless  we  have  some  sense 
of  the  hatefulness  of  sin,  of  unholiness,  and  some  desire  for 
holiness,  a  desire  which  is  itself  a  commencement,  however 
feeble,  of  a  spiritual  or  holy  life,  a  seed  of  grace  in  which 
there  already  lie  all  the  promises  and  possibilities  of  complete 
sanctification.  The  faith  which  alone  seeks  and  can  alone 
receive  justification,  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  is  a  moral  faith, 
a  faith  in  which  there  is  involved  sorrow  for  sin,  hatred  of 
sin,  desire  to  be  free  from  sin,  a  longing  for  holiness,  a 
stretching  and  straining  after  holiness. 

Justification  and  sanctification  ought  not  to  be  confounded, 
but  neither  ought  they  to  be  so  sharply  separated  as  they  often 
are.  Some  speak  as  if  the  former  were  completed  before  the 
latter  is  begun.  Surely  they  overlook  that  Christian  men  so 
long  as  they  sin,  so  long  as  they  are  not  completely  holy,  and 
consequently  so  long  as  they  are  on  earth,  must  constantly 
need  to  be  anew  forgiven,  justified  afresh.  The  first  mani- 
festation of  the  spirit  of  regeneration  in  a  man  is  turning  to 
God  in  Christ  through  faith  for  both  pardoning  mercy  and 
sanctifying  grace,  and  in  the  last  hour  of  his  earthly  life 
every  Christian  must  still  feel  these  two  great  blessings 
equally  necessary  to  him.  The  author  of  a  popular  religious 
book,  entitled,  "  The  Higher  Christian  Life,"  has  only  ex- 
aggerated a  common  error,  when  he  maintains  that  men 
receive  Christ  first  as  their  iustification,  and  then  afterwards 


CHRIST    MADE    UNTO    US    SANCTTFICATION.  237 

— sometimes  shortly  after,  sometimes  years  after — they  receive 
Him  as  their  sauctification,  which  last  receiving  of  Him  is  a 
kind  of  neiv  conversion  and  the  introduction  to  a  "  higher 
Christian  life."  The  whole  conception  on  which  this  hypo- 
thesis rests  is  false.  Christ  is  not  thus  divided  or  divisible. 
The  soul  must  choose  Him  and  cleave  to  Him  in  His  unity 
or  not  at  all.  It  must  so  receive  Him  from  first  to  last, 
from  hour  to  hour,  from  day  to  day,  from  year  to  year, 
throughout  its  whole  Christian  life  on  earth.  There  can  be 
no  accepting  of  Christ  at  all  unless  we  accept  Him  as  one 
whom  we  desire  to  work  in  us  all  His  blessed  will  and  good 
pleasure.  We  cannot  have  our  sins  forgiven  through  Him 
unless  we  seek  to  have  also  the  power  of  them  destroyed  in 
us  through  Him.  We  must  take  Him  as  our  King  or  we 
cannot  have  Him  as  our  Priest.  He  cannot  be  received  as  a 
propitiation  by  those  who  would  reject  Him  as  sauctification. 

That  we  must  find  our  sanctification  in  Christ  Himself  is 
as  obvious  as  that  we  must  find  in  Him  our  wisdom  and 
righteousness.  It  is  obvious  from  the  very  nature  of  the 
thing.  For  what  is  sanctification  but  a  putting  off  of  the  old 
or  carnal  man  and  a  putting  on  of  the  new  or  spiritual  man, 
but  a  putting  off  of  self  and  a  putting  on  of  Christ  ?  That 
is  what  has  to  be  accomplished  in  a  holy  life,  and  all  work 
which  does  not  fill  us  more  and  more  with  the  spirit  and 
clothe  us  more  and  more  with  the  holy  beauties  of  Christ  is, 
so  far  as  sanctification  is  concerned,  labour  lost. 

In  giving  expression  to  this  truth  there  is  more  danger  of 
under  than  of  over-statement.  At  least  we  are  not  to  suppose 
that  the  appropriation  of  the  character  and  graces  of  Christ 
which  constitutes  holiness  is  a  mere  outward  imitation  and  not 
a  real  appropriation.  The  life  of  the  believer  is  one  which  is 
hid  with  Christ  in  God,  and  Christ  truly  lives  in  the  believer. 
Our  Christ  is  not  one  who  merely  suffered  and  died,  rose  again 
and  lives,  for  us,  but  one  who  lives  in  us,  so  that  we  derive 
all  our  spiritual  life  from  His  life  even  as  the  branch  derives 
its  life  from  the  tree  to  which  it  is  united.  We  can  no  more 
live  of  ourselves,  we  can  no  more  think,  feel,  speak  or  do  what 
is  spiritually  good  of  ourselves,  than  the  branch  can  live  of 
itself,  can  bud,  blossom,  or  bear  fruit  of  itself.     Whenever  we 


238         CHRIST    MADE    UNTO    US    SANCTIFICATION. 

try  to  work  as  of  ourselves  our  work  has  no  efficacy  or  blessing 
in  it.  It  is  only  effort  wasted,  strength  thrown  away.  With- 
out Christ  we  can  do  nothing.  His  life  in  ours  is  what 
sanctifies  our  life,  is  the  source  and  substance  of  our  spiritual 
life. 

Our  sanctification,  then,  depends  on  our  communion  with 
Christ.  It  is  only  to  be  carried  on  through  that  being  kept 
up ;  its  continuity,  progress,  and  completeness  must  depend 
on  the  constancy,  the  growth,  and  the  thoroughness  of  the 
communion  between  the  soul  and  its  Saviour. 

Now,  this  communion  is  necessarily  a  twofold  process,  a 
mutual  and  reciprocal  intercourse,  a  living  of  the  soul  in 
Christ  and  a  living  of  Christ  in  the  soul.  The  soul  that  would 
grow  in  holiness  must  seek  to  live  in  Christ.  It  must  be  its 
constant  desire  and  aim  through  faith,  love,  hope — through 
pious  meditation  on  what  great  things  God  has  in  Christ  done 
for  it — through  contemplation  of  the  perfect  character  and 
example  of  Christ — through  effort  to  imitate  the  one  and 
follow  the  other — through  prayer — through  intercourse  with 
the  pious — through  the  devout  perusal  of  Scripture — through 
the  ordinances  and  services  of  the  Church — through  all  the 
multitudinous  means  of  grace  and  of  increased  acquaintance 
with  Christ  which  God  bestows — the  soul,  I  say,  in  pursuit 
of  holiness  must  endeavour  thus  to  be  ever  with  the  Lord, 
abiding  with  Him,  conversing  with  Him,  learning  from  Him, 
sharing  in  His  life. 

But  this  is  not  all.  The  believer  must  not  only  seek  thus 
to  live  in  Christ ;  but  must  also  seek  to  have  Christ  living 
in  him,  working  in  him,  transforming  his  whole  character, 
determining  his  whole  conduct,  purifying,  exalting,  and  beauti- 
fying his  whole  mind,  heart,  and  life.  For  this,  and  nothing 
short  of  this,  is  the  promise,  and  nothing  short  of  this  can 
satisfy  or  suffice.  A  God  and  Saviour  to  whom  we  can  go 
and  speak,  into  whose  presence  we  can  enter,  on  whose  name 
we  may  call,  whom  we  are  permitted  to  follow  and  com- 
manded to  obey,  is  by  no  means  a  God  and  Saviour  completely 
adequate  to  our  wants ;  we  need  a  God  and  Saviour  who  will 
also  come  to  us  and  speak  to  us,  who  will  be  nearer  us  than 
any  creature  can  be,  who  will  take  hold  of  us,  live,  rule,  and 


CHRIST   MADE    UNTO    US    SANCTIFICATION.  239 

work  in  us,  giving  us  a  power  and  a  wisdom  and  a  virtue 
not  our  own. 

Such  is  the  twofold  task,  the  double  problem,  of  sanctifica- 
tion.  And  thanks  be  to  God  it  is  not  a  hopeless  task,  an 
insoluble  problem.  What  is  impossible  with  man  is  possible 
with  God,  and  God  has  made  possible  for  us  in  this  great 
matter  of  sanctification  all  that  He  demands  of  us.  He  has 
made  a  revelation  of  Himself  which  is  a  completely  adequate 
agency  and  surety  of  our  sanctification.  He  has  not  only 
shown  us  His  Fatherhood  with  its  infinite  love  and  mercy, 
and  His  Sonship  with  its  atoning  sacrifice  and  perfect  example, 
but  He  has  also  revealed  Himself  as  the  Holy  Spirit,  who 
dwelleth  and  worketh  in  us  unto  sanctification  and  eternal 
life.  Eighteen  hundred  years  of  thought  and  experience  have 
not  yet  fully  taught  the  Christian  Church  how  great  and 
glorious  a  truth  it  is  that  God  is  not  only  the  Father  and  the 
Son  but  also  the  Spirit,  Great  as  was  the  advance  of  the 
revelation  of  God  in  the  incarnation  and  atonement  of  Christ 
over  the  revelation  in  creation  and  ordinary  providence,  it 
was  yet  imperfect,  it  was  merely  external,  it  still  left  God 
without  us.  But  God  has  not  thus  left  the  revelation  of  His 
name  incomplete ;  He  has  disclosed  Himself  as  the  Spirit, 
present  to  and  in  our  spirits,  imparting  to  them  from  within 
the  light  and  love,  the  power  and  grace  they  need.  It  is  this 
which  makes  Christianity,  speculatively  considered,  the  absolute 
revelation  of  Godhead ;  and  it  is  this  also  which  makes  it, 
practically  considered,  a  perfect  salvation, 

God  as  the  Holy  Spirit  undertakes  to  work  in  us  the  will 
of  God  the  Father  and  to  conform  us  to  the  image  of  God 
the  Son ;  to  enable  us  to  live  in  Christ  and  to  bring  Christ 
to  live  in  us;  to  sanctify  us  in  body  and  soul,  heart  and 
conduct.  The  law  is  spiritual,  and  we  are  carnal,  but  He,  the 
Spirit,  is  both  able  and  willing  to  make  the  spiritual  in  us 
triumph ;  Christ's  example  is  one  of  perfect  sanctity,  and  we 
are  most  imperfect  and  sinful,  but  the  Spirit  is  perfectly  holy, 
and  if  within  us,  will  not  cease  to  work  within  us  until  He 
has  wholly  transformed  us  into  the  likeness  of  our  Lord. 
Let  us  yield  ourselves,  therefore,  in  faith  and  with  good  hope 
to  His  power ;  let  us  not  grieve  the  Spirit ;  let  us  seek  in  His 


240         CHRIST   MADE    UNTO    US   SANCTIFICATION. 

strength  to  depart  from  all  iniquity,  to  be  holy  in  all  manner 
of  conversation  ;  to  press  on  after  perfection. 

Yes,  after  'perfection.  That  is  the  goal  at  which  we  should 
aim.  St  Paul's  prayer  for  the  Thessalonians — "that  they 
might  be  sanctified  wliolly,  preserved  blameless  in  their  whole 
s'pirit  and  soul  and  body  " — is  one  which  every  Christian  man 
and  woman  should  habitually  offer  up  on  their  own  behalf. 
Sin  has  vitiated  every  part  of  our  nature.  We  need  to  be 
sanctified  in  every  part  thereof.  The  mind  with  its  faculties, 
the  heart  with  its  affections,  the  will  with  its  energies  and 
resolutions,  the  conscience  with  its  motives  and  dictates,  the 
body  with  its  corporeal  motions  and  animal  appetites,  have  all 
been  tainted  and  corrupted,  and  all  require  to  be  purified  and 
renewed  until  there  remain  in  them  nothing  contrary  to  God's 
law,  nothing  offensive  to  God's  holiness. 

That  goal  may  be  on  earth  always  largely  an  object  merely 
of  aspiration.  Let  it  be  to  us,  however,  what  it  ought  to  be, 
an  object  of  sincere  aspiration,  of  earnest  endeavour  after 
attainment.  Let  us  see  to  it  that  the  general  course  of  our 
lives  be  always  moving  towards  it — moving  in  the  only  right 
direction.  The  native  and  proper  tendency  of  sanctification 
is  to  advance.  The  Christian  who  is  retrograding  is  a  man 
who  is  in  a  most  dangerous  condition, — a  man  who  is  falling 
away  from  grace. 

Let  us  press  then  steadily  onwards  towards  the  mark  of 
the  prize  of  our  high  calling  in  Jesus  Christ.  The  way  is 
difficult ;  it  may  be  long  and  toilsome ;  we  may  meet  with 
many  disappointments  on  it ;  we  may  often  stumble  and  fall ; 
but  if  we  obey  and  trust  our  God,  a  gracious  Father,  a  loving 
Saviour,  a  sanctifying  Spirit,  we  assuredly  shall  not  fail  to 
reach  our  goal,  the  mark  of  the  prize  of  our  high  calHng. 
May  God  grant  that  we  all  reach  it.  May  the  God  of  peace 
that  brought  again  from  the  dead  our  Lord  Jesus,  that  great 
Shepherd  of  the  sheep,  through  the  blood  of  the  everlasting 
covenant,  make  us  perfect  in  every  good  work  to  do  His  will, 
working  in  us  that  which  is  well-pleasing  in  His  sight,  through 
Jesus  Christ.     And  to  His  name  be  glory  for  ever.     Amen. 


XXII. 
GOD'S    SOVEREIGNTY— MAN'S    EVIL    EYE.^ 

"  Is  it  not  lawful  for  me  to  do  what  I  will  with  mine  own  ?     Is  thine  eye  evil, 
because  I  am  good  ?  "—Matthew  xx.  15. 

THIS  verse  is  part  of  a  parable  which  is  in  some  respects 
difficult  of  interpretation,  but  which  had  clearly  enough 
the  general  design  of  rebuking  a  vice  which  has  in  all  ages, 
countries,  and  classes  of  society  been  very  common, — the  vice 
of  murmuring  at  God's  goodness  towards  others  as  if  it  were 
injustice  towards  ourselves.  Hence  obviously  very  much  of 
the  meaning  of  the  parable  comes  out,  finds  expression,  in  the 
text ;  and  although  the  parable  be  hard  to  understand  as  a 
whole,  nothing  can  be  plainer  than  the  teaching  of  the  verse 
which  is  the  text.  It  brings  before  us  two  subjects, — the 
sovereignty  of  God  and  the  envy  of  the  human  heart, — and 
indicates  that  the  latter  of  these  is  the  cause,  or  at  any  rate  a 
cause,  of  the  former  being  questioned,  and  murmured  against, 
and  evil  spoken  of.  These  ai'e  the  things,  then,  on  which  we 
would  meditate  for  a  short  time,  seeking  God's  blessing  so  that 
our  meditations  may  be  profitable  to  mind  and  heart  and  bear 
good  fruit  in  our  lives. 

The  text  teaches  us  the  sovereignty  of  God.  The  house- 
holder in  the  parable  for  whom  it  is  lawful  to  do  what  he  will 
with  his  own  plainly  represents  Almighty  God.  He  the  Creator 
of  all  things, — He  the  possessor  of  all  things  in  a  far  fuller 
sense  than  any  man  is  the  possessor  of  anything, — He  has  a 
right  to  do  what  He  will  with  His  own.  It  is  not  for  man  to 
challenge  what  God  does  with  His  own.  Men  are  very  jealous 
about  their  rights  to  what  they  call  their  own  ;  will  not  readily 
suffer  the  meddling  of  others  with  what  they  claim  to  be  their 
property ;  are  prone  to  push  their  titles  to  possession  to  the 

^  Preached  in  the  Churches  of  Craiglockhart  and  of  Crathie. 
241  r> 


242        god's  sovereignty — man's  evil  eye. 

utmost  limits  human  law  will  allow  and  far  beyond  those  which 
Divine  Justice  prescribes ;  and  this  although  these  rights  and 
titles  rest  often  on  the  poorest,  sandiest  foundations,  being  such 
as  cannot  be  traced  far  until  you  come  to  mere  brute  force,  or 
fraud,  or  arbitrary  will.  Well,  surely,  if  men  are  so  jealous 
about  rights  and  titles  of  this  sort ;  if  they  are  so  easily  satisfied 
that  this  and  that  other  thing  is  their  own,  and  that  therefore 
they  may  do  with  it  what  they  will,  none  daring  to  blame  them  ; 
if  so,  surely  they  will  never  presume  to  contest  the  rights  of 
God  over  what  there  is  certainly  no  denying  to  be  His  own, — 
those  rights  which  no  one  can  pretend  to  have  been  wrongfully 
taken  from  any  one  or  to  have  ever  belonged  to  any  other, — 
those  rights  which  creation  and  preservation  give  Him, — the 
rights  of  a  proprietorship  like  unto  which  for  legitimacy  there 
is  none  other  in  the  universe.  But,  strange  to  say,  it  is  just 
His  rights  which  are  most  contested  ;  which  are  constantly  being 
contested ;  which  all  of  us  are  slow  of  heart  to  acknowledge. 
Our  own  right  to  do  what  we  will  with  what  we  fancy  to  be 
our  own,  although  perhaps  not  at  all  our  own,  and  seldom  indeed 
if  ever  entirely  our  own,  we  question  not  nor  suffer  others  to 
question ;  but  God's  right  to  do  what  He  will  with  His  own, 
with  what  is  indubitably,  entirely,  exclusively  His  own, — God's 
sovereignty, — that  we  not  only  often  question  but  often,  it  is 
to  be  feared,  censure  and  deny.  This  is  one  of  the  many  strange 
and  revolting  contradictions  which  we  find  within  us,  and  which 
will  be  in  us,  so  long  as  we  have  the  evil  eye, — will  be  in  us 
until  the  evil  eye  is  plucked  out,  and  an  eye  not  evil,  not  double 
and  contradictory  but  single  and  making  the  whole  body  full 
of  light,  is  given  us  instead. 

Let  us,  however,  see  a  little  more  closely  what  this  sovereignty, 
this  right  to  do  as  He  wills  with  His  own,  which  God  here  claims, 
really  is.  Now,  it  is  clearly  a  sovereignty,  a  right,  which  in  a 
certain  sense  is  not  absolute,  not  unconditioned.  There  is  a 
sort  of  sovereignty  which  some  have  sought  to  ascribe  to  God 
but  which  He  in  His  Word  often  disclaims.  A  sovereignty  over 
holiness  and  truth  themselves  to  choose  or  reject  them,  a  right 
to  disregard  or  set  aside  right,  a  sovereignty  of  this  kind  in- 
consistent with  moral  perfection,  a  right  of  this  kind  contra- 
dicting all  our  highest  and  worthiest  thoughts  about  what  is 


god's  sovereignty — man's  evil  eye.        243 

right,  God  nowhere  asks  us  to  believe  in.  Nay,  He  not  only 
nowhere  asks  us  to  ascribe  to  Him  such  a  sovereignty,  but  wher- 
ever He  strongly  claims  for  Himself  that  sovereignty  of  action 
which  is  His  due.  He  is,  as  it  were,  careful  to  guard  us  against 
confusing  it  with  the  other  and  thereby  forming  a  false  and 
degrading  conception  of  His  character.  It  is  so  in  the  present 
instance.  Are  we  not  carefully  instructed  that  every  labourer 
got  his  own,  got  all  he  was  entitled  to,  that  no  man  was  wronged, 
was  unjustly  dealt  with, — that  the  reason  why  some  murmured 
was  not  that  they  got  less  than  they  were  entitled  to  look  for 
but  that  others  got  more,  were  more  bountifully  dealt  with  ? 
The  householder  in  claiming  a  right  to  do  as  he  wills  with  his 
own  claims  no  right  to  disregard  or  violate  justice  but  a  right 
conditioned  by  justice,  a  i-ight  which  justice  gives  him,  a  right 
against  which  the  sense  of  justice  has  not  a  word  to  say,  a  right 
which  only  the  evil  eye,  the  envious  heart,  finds  painful.  The 
sovereignty,  then,  which  we  find  God  demanding  us  to  recognise 
is  one  consistent  with  justice. 

It  is  also,  I  would  further  remark,  one  which  reason  as  reason 
has  nothing  to  say  against.  The  general  fact  that  a  certain 
sovereignty  of  action  belongs  unto  God,  that  He  is  free,  that 
He  is  under  constraint  to  no  one,  that  He  may  do  as  He  will 
with  His  own,  this  general  fact  certainly  accords  with  reason ; 
nay,  reason  vouches  for  the  truth  of  it.  If  reason  prove,  as 
surely  reason  does,  that  there  is  a  God,  it  is  that  there  is  a  God 
thus  sovereign,  independent,  and  free.  A  God  not  so  would  be 
no  true  God.  The  poorest,  feeblest  creature  who  from  a  feeling 
of  love  conldi  freely  give  a  cup  of  cold  water  to  a  suffering  fellow- 
creature  would  be  superior  to  a  God  who,  although  eternal  and 
infinite  in  His  attributes,  had  no  freedom.  So  noble  a  thing  is 
freedom.  And  hence  the  reason  which  testifies  of  God  that 
He  is  infinitely  above  us  in  all  things  else  testifies  that  He  is 
infinitely  above  us  as  to  freedom  also.  Then,  as  to  the  results 
of  this  freedom,  the  individual  instances  in  which  this  sove- 
reignty is  manifested,  it  is  true  that  human  reason  often  cannot 
account  for  them,  cannot  show  why  they  are  so  and  not  other- 
vsdse,  but  they  are  not  contrary  to  it  in  any  way ;  it  is  never 
forced  to  conclude  that  they  ought  to  have  been  otherwise 
than  they  are.    Why  God  causes  one  man  to  be  born  rich  and 


244        god's  sovereignty — man's  evil  eye. 

another  poor,  why  He  here  pulls  down  and  there  raises  up,  at 
one  moment  sends  prosperity  and  at  another  adversity,  our 
reasons  may  very  likely  fail  to  tell  us  ;  but  do  they  ever  tell  us 
that  any  of  these  things  God  should  not  do,  or  even  that  for  any 
of  these  things  He  has  not  many  and  good  reasons,  although 
we  do  not  perceive  them  ?  It  is  not  from  our  reasons  that 
objections  to  God's  sovereignty  come  but  from  our  feelings, — 
sometimes  from  natural  feelings,  such  as  dislike  of  suffering, 
and  at  other  times  from  feelings  which  dishonour  our  nature, 
such  as  envying  and  grieving  at  the  good  of  others. 

It  is  especially  necessary  to  bear  this  in  mind,  that  God's 
sovereignty  rightly  apprehended  is  never  contrary  to  reason, 
although  it  often  is  contrary  to  excessive  and  perverted  feeling, 
because  it  is  not  uncommon  to  use  the  doctrine  of  God's  sove- 
reignty in  order  to  put  down  the  reason,  to  silence  it.  That  is  a 
thoroughly  unscriptural  use  of  the  doctrine.  In  all  the  passages 
where  it  is  dwelt  upon — in  the  eighteenth  chapter  of  Jeremiah, 
the  ninth  chapter  of  the  Eomans,  and  this  parable  of  the  house- 
holder— you  will  find  that  it  is  just  by  appealing  to  the  reason 
that  God  vindicates  His  claims  to  sovereignty.  He  puts  down 
in  favour  of  the  truth  of  His  sovereignty  the  murmurings  of 
perverse  affections  by  appeals  to  the  reason,  but  the  question- 
ings of  reason,  and  still  more,  of  course,  of  the  moral  sense,  He 
never  puts  down,  and  those  who  would  do  so  for  Him  are  but 
unskilful  advocates  of  His  cause.  There  are  a  great  many  people 
who  are  afraid  lest  reason  go  too  far  into  the  study  of  God's 
ways,  and  who  think  and  speak  of  it  as  a  sin  to  question  very 
closely  the  indications  we  have  of  His  character  and  dispensa- 
tions. Well,  truly,  if  a  sin,  it  is  one  few  are  guilty  of.  I  do 
not  see  it  anywhere ;  but  a  dull,  stupid,  blind  indifference  to 
God's  ways  and  workings,  that  I  see  everywhere.  And  it  is  to 
be  feared  that  there  has  been  a  mistake,  and  that  a  virtue  has 
come  to  be  thought  of  as  a  sin,  and  a  sin  to  be  thought  of  as  a 
virtue.  Reason  cannot  go  too  far  in  the  study  of  God's  ways 
so  long  as  it  remains  reason.  The  Bible  nowhere  says  a  word 
about  its  going  too  far.  Priests  have  in  all  ages  preached 
against  that  as  a  sin,  and  a  blinded  people  has  believed  them, 
while  what  God  has  always  complained  of  is  that  men  would 
not  study  His  character  and  ways  closely  and  diligently  enough. 


god's  sovereignty — man's  evil  eye.        245 

Priests  may  fear  that  if  reason  goes  a  certain  length  it  will 
find  their  dogmas  irrational,  but  God  has  no  fear  that  if  it  go 
to  the  utmost  length  it  can,  it  will  ever  find  any  of  His  ways 
irrational. 

Next  I  have  to  remark  that  this  sovereignty  of  God  is  not 
any  transcendental,  invisible  thing,  which  does  not  come  near 
UB  or  much  concern  us,  but  a  thing  which  we  may  see  in,  over, 
and  all  around  us,  determining  the  various  circumstances  of 
our  own  and  our  neighbours'  lives.  It  is  not  a  thing  which  we 
are  shut  out  from  studying  because  we  cannot  obtain  a  know- 
ledge of  God's  secret  decrees  or  eternal  purposes ;  the  study  of 
it  only  requires  that  we  look  at  ordinary,  every-day  facts.  It 
is  not  a  thing  that  we  can  only  read  about  in  the  Bible,  but  a 
thing  in  regard  to  which  we  can  verify  and  realise  what  the 
Bible  says  by  comparing  it  with  what  is  to  be  seen  in  society 
or  with  the  experience  of  our  own  souls.  The  way  in  which 
the  householder  is  represented  in  the  parable  as  dealing  with 
his  labourers  is  a  way  in  which  God  is  constantly  dealing  with 
men ;  the  effect  it  is  represented  as  having,  the  envious  mur- 
muring, the  grieving  and  grudging  of  some  at  the  good  of 
others,  is  one  of  general  and  incessant  recurrence  ;  the  occasions 
on  which  God  may  well  be  conceived  of  as  saying  to  us,  "  May 
I  not  do  what  I  will  with  Mine  own  ?  Is  thine  eye  evil  because 
I  am  good  ?  "  are  innumerable.  It  may  be  of  use  to  show  this, 
as  it  will  show  that  this  portion  of  God's  Word  is  not  one  of 
mere  speculative  interest,  not  one  about  something  far  away 
from  us  in  a  past  eternity  or  the  hidden  depths  of  another 
world,  but  very  near  to  us,  yea,  in  our  hearts  and  lives,  and 
most  real  and  practical. 

Now  first,  then,  this  is  a  fact  that  God  sets  men  in  very 
different  circumstances  as  to  outward  prosperity,  as  to  worldly 
comfort,  wealth,  and  influence.  Nothing  in  a  man  himself,  no 
intellectual  or  moral  qualities  of  his,  but  the  fact  that  his 
parents  were  such-and-such  persons  determines  whether  he  is 
to  begin  life  in  the  lowest  or  the  highest  ranks  of  society ; 
whether  he  shall  have  perhaps  to  struggle  constantly  against 
starvation  or  be  the  j)OSsessor  of  more  riches  than  he  can  make 
use  of ;  whether  he  is  to  toil  at  manual  labour  and  in  menial 
service  or  wear  gay  clothing  and  dwell  in  kings'  houses.     This 


246        god's  sovereignty — man's  evil  eye. 

God  determines,  this  God  does,  according  to  the  sovereignty  of 
His  own  will.  It  is  not  according  to  merits ;  no  man  in  pre- 
sence of  the  facts  of  the  case  will  so  outrage  common  sense  as 
seriously  to  maintain  that.  God  puts  this  man  in  a  low  position 
and  that  in  a  high,  causes  this  man  to  be  born  a  beggar  and 
that  a  prince,  for  good  reasons  no  doubt,  but  not  for  reasons 
that  we  can  discover,  and  certainly  not  because  of  merits.  To 
one  man  He  grants  success,  and  to  another,  manifestly  not  in- 
ferior in  worth  or  ability.  He  denies  it ;  the  one  attaining  and 
the  other  failing,  because  circumstances  over  which  neither  had 
control  prospered  the  one  and  baffled  the  other.  That  there 
are  thus  many  and  great  differences  between  the  lots  of  men 
which  are  not  of  man's  own  creation  but  of  God's  sovereign 
willing  and  ordaining,  are  facts  as  certain  as  any  in  the  world. 
But  are  they  not  apt  to  seem  very  hard,  harsh  facts  ?  Do  they 
not  occasion  a  great  deal  of  murmuring  ?  Are  they  not  very 
sore  and  offensive  to  many  an  eye?  Have  we  not  seen  the 
envy  and  the  jealousy  to  which  they  give  rise  manifested  in  our 
own  day  not  only  in  murmurings  but  in  ruthless  murders,  in 
gigantic  conspiracies,  in  ferocious  insurrections,  in  the  most 
extravagant  schemes  and  the  most  insane  efforts  to  destroy  all 
social  distinctions,  to  level  down  all  social  inequalities,  even 
those  most  manifestly  of  God's  making  and  not  of  man's? 
And  are  not  the  mad  rage  of  the  Communist  striving  to  reduce 
a  city  to  ashes,  and  the  dark  hate  of  the  Nihilist  on  the  track 
of  his  victim,  and  the  insane  destructiveness  of  the  dynamitard 
merely  the  iutensest  forms  of  a  kind  of  evil  passion  which 
is  universal,  which  everywhere  sets  class  against  class  and 
divides  neighbours  from  one  another,  which  often  separates 
even  brother  from  brother  and  sister  from  sister,  which  shows 
its  baneful  presence  in  our  hearts  whenever  we  harbour  there  a 
bitter  feeling  because  some  one  is  more  fortunate,  more  wealthy, 
more  popular,  more  influential  than  we  are,  and  which  we  all 
need  to  watch,  and  pray,  and  strive  against  ? 

It  is  not  uncommon  but  very  common  for  a  man  to  grieve  at 
his  neighbour's  good,  to  contrast  it  with  his  own  lot,  and  to 
murmur,  "  What  has  this  man  ever  done  that  he  should  be  so 
much  more  comfortably  situated,  so  much  more  bountifully 
dealt  with,  than  I  am? — why  have  I  been  born  to  all  this 


god's  sovereignty — man's  evil  eye.        247 

poverty  and  toil  and  suffering,  while  he,  mentally  and  morally 
not  better  but  worse  than  I  am,  has  been  born  to  ease,  honour, 
and  affluence  ?  "  Well,  it  is  a  hard  question  truly  ;  a  question 
to  which  no  answer  of  the  kind  which  the  repining  heart 
seeks  can  be  given  ;  a  question  to  which  the  only  direct  answer 
is,  God  has  so  willed  it  and  had  a  right  so  to  will  it.  He  had 
a  right  to  do  as  He  pleased  with  His  own.  Special  kindness  to 
one  is  not  injustice  to  another.  If  God  gives  to  all,  as  assuredly 
He  does,  as  much  and  more  than  they  deserve,  none  have  a 
right  to  complain  that  He  has  been  more  bountiful  to  others 
than  to  them.  Let  us  not  delude  ourselves  when  we  feel  as  if 
God's  doing  good  to  our  neighbours  were  doing  wrong  to  us, 
with  the  fancy  that  a  sense  of  justice  is  at  the  root  of  our  dis- 
content with  our  own  condition,  for  the  real  root  of  it  is  an  evil, 
envious  eye,  which  it  is  our  duty  to  pluck  out, — for  if  we  get  rid 
of  it  we  shall  cease  our  murmuring,  accept  humbly  and  lovingly 
God's  will  to  ourselves,  and  even  rejoice  that  it  seems  still 
more  to  abound  in  mercy  unto  others. 

Then  here  is  a  second  fact.  God  does  not  only  place  men  in 
different  circumstances  as  to  mere  worldly  prosperity  but  in 
different  moral  circumstances.  The  moral  surroundings  of 
men  are  of  an  infinite  variety  of  kinds  and  degrees,  and  these 
are  very  often  of  God's  fixing  and  not  left  to  a  man's  own 
choosing.  One  man  before  his  very  birth,  before  he  has  done 
any  action  good  or  bad,  God  hates  more  than  He  hated  Esau 
because  He  fixes  his  lot  to  be  born  and  reared  among  African 
aborigines  scarcely  elevated  above  the  brutes,  or  among  the 
devotees  of  all  that  is  licentious  and  degrading  in  Hinduism  ; 
while  another,  on  the  contrary,  He  loves  more  than  He  ever 
loved  Jacob,  since  He  determines  his  lot  to  be  the  object  of  the 
wise  and  tender  care  of  Christian  parents  in  our  own  highly 
favoured  land.  And  even  within  this  land  itself  what  extremes, 
what  differences  there  are !  Why,  there  are  souls,  immortal 
souls,  sent  into  this  land  which  from  the  hour  of  their  birth 
are  acted  on  by  such  influences  that  one  might  almost  doubt  if 
an  angel  from  heaven  could  pass  through  them  without  pollu- 
tion ;  immortal  souls  which  are  born  and  cradled  and  drilled  in 
crime,  so  that  you  can  scarcely  expect  anything  but  crime  from 
them.     There  are  others  who  are  sent  into  the  charge  of  those 


248        god's  sovereignty — man's  evil  eye. 

who  surround  them  with  a  watchful  prudence  and  tender  affec- 
tion, who  set  before  them  good  examples,  check  in  them  the  first 
risings  of  evil,  and  foster  in  them  all  that  is  gentle,  and  generous, 
and  true,  so  that  one  can  scarcely  see  how  they  could  have  been 
more  happily  placed  for  virtue  and  religion. 

Thus  God  acts  in  the  exercise  of  His  sovereign  will.  He 
sends  one  soul  among  the  influences  most  favourable,  another 
among  those  most  unfavourable  to  its  moral  health.  But  you 
know  that  this  is  a  fact  which  is  apt  to  stagger  the  mind  very 
much,  and  that  it  is  associated  with  some  very  dismal  specula- 
tions which  would  confine  God's  love  to  a  few  and  consign  the 
rest  of  mankind  to  a  hopeless  looking  for  of  judgment.  I  believe 
these  speculations  are  as  ill  founded  as  they  are  painful,  and  of 
this  I  am  sure,  that  if  any  man  say  that  God's  hate  to  Esau,  to 
a  Hindu,  to  those  born  of  profligate  parents,  is  incompatible 
with  the  most  tender  and  fatherly  love  to  them, — that  if  any 
man  say  that  God  wishes  the  hurt  or  sin  or  death  of  any  one  and 
that  His  putting  them  in  unfavourable  circumstances  is  evidence 
of  this, — he  calumniates  the  character  of  God.  God  bears  the 
truest  love  to  all,  and  has  the  best  of  reasons  for  how  He  acts 
towards  all,  and  can  make  the  crooked  straight  and  enable  the 
last  to  be  first,  and  has  often  done  so.  Hence  in  all  ages  many 
have  been  coming  out  of  heathen  lands  to  sit  on  the  thrones  of 
heaven  which  the  children  of  the  kingdom  might  have  been 
expected  to  occupy,  but  did  not ;  in  all  ages  publicans  and 
sinners  have  been  passing  in  where  scribes  and  Pharisees  have 
been  shut  out. 

Now,  how  has  God  shown  His  sovereignty  towards  us  in  this 
respect,  and  how  ought  we  to  feel  towards  it  ?  Plainly  all  of 
us  here  are  by  the  ordination  of  God  among  the  exceptionally 
favoured  in  a  land  favoured  above  all  others.  There  are  mil- 
lions on  millions  on  the  earth  ignorant  of  a  Saviour's  name,  and 
thousands  on  thousands  in  this  country  scarcely,  if  at  all,  more 
happily  situated  than  the  heathen ;  not  one  of  us  had  any 
higher  claim  on  God's  goodness  than  the  wildest  African 
savage  or  the  most  degi'aded  dweller  in  the  foulest  lane  of 
London ;  and  yet  how  His  goodness  has  abounded  towards 
us,  placing  us  where  many  temptations  were  shut  off  from 
us,  or   could   only  feebly  reach  us,  where  we   had   countless 


god's  sovereignty — man's  evil  eye.        249 

inducements  to  conduct  ourselves  worthily,  where  kindly  and 
elevating  sympathies  surrounded  us,  where  moral  aid  and 
encouragement  abounded,  where  all  Gospel  privileges  were 
free  to  us  and  pressed  upon  us.  Clearly  we  are  among  those 
whose  habitual  feelings  should  be  deepest  gratitude  to  God  for 
His  mercies,  and  a  pitying  active  love  for  those  who  have  not 
been  favoured  as  we  have  been. 

But  is  it  so  ?  Conscience  will  say  it  has  often  been  quite 
otherwise.  God's  goodness  and  the  claims  of  our  less  favoured 
brethren  we  have  overlooked  or  forgotten.  Our  narrow,  envious, 
selfish  hearts,  turning  away  from  recognition  of  the  blessings 
they  enjoyed,  and  giving  no  heed  to  the  fact  that  multitudes 
lacked  what  they  possessed,  have  singled  out  this  and  that  in- 
dividual as  morally  better  placed,  better  situated  than  ourselves, 
and  this  belief,  although  not  unlikely  a  delusion,  has  been 
enough  to  cause  us  to  feel  as  if  God  had  dealt  but  hardly  with 
us, — as  if  He  might  well  have  done  more  for  us, — as  if  He  ought 
hardly  to  expect  the  whole  love  of  our  hearts  and  the  whole 
service  of  our  lives,  whatever  He  may  do  from  those  to  whom 
He  has  been  kinder.  Thus  instead  of  responding  as  we  ought 
to  the  manifestation  of  God's  sovereignty  in  the  ordering  of 
our  moral  circumstances  with  gratitude  to  God  and  compassion 
and  help  to  men,  we  contrive  to  respond  to  it  with  a  charge 
of  injustice  on  God's  part  towards  ourselves  and  with  envious 
grieving  at  the  good  He  has  done  to  others.  For  such  perversity 
there  can,  of  course,  be  no  excuse,  and  we  cannot  too  anxiously 
pray  and  strive  to  be  freed  from  it. 

Again,  God  shows  His  sovereignty,  His  freedom  of  action, 
in  the  unequal  distribution  of  mental  powers  which  He  makes 
among  men.  To  one  man  He  gives  five  talents,  to  another 
two,  to  another  only  one.  This  likewise  is  a  trying  fact  and 
brings  out  in  many  a  heart  unjust  and  bitter  thoughts  both 
towards  God  and  towards  man.  It  is  a  painful  thing  to  have 
the  consciousness  forced  on  you  that  your  abilities  are  inferior 
to  those  of  others ;  that  others  can  do  the  very  work  in  which 
you  are  most  anxious  to  excel,  more  easily,  more  skilfully,  more 
successfully  than  you  can.  It  is  a  severe  trial  to  many  boys 
at  school  and  young  men  at  college,  for  example,  to  find  that 
in  spite  of  their  most  strenuous  efforts  to  obtain  some  legiti- 


250        god's  sovereigxty — man's  evil  eye. 

mate  distinction  a  fellow-scholar  or  fellow-student  can  by  an 
easy  exertion  carry  it  away  from  them  ;  and  that  it  is  a  keen 
trial  is  made  obvious  by  this,  that  they  will  very  often  rather 
say  that  they  have  not  been  diligent  in  trying  to  succeed  than 
unable  to  do  so ;  that  they  will  rather  acknowledge  neglect  of 
duty  than  want  of  ability. 

It  requires  a  very  fair  and  honest  mind,  and  one  which  has 
habituated  itself  to  self-denial  of  the  selfishness  and  evil 
natural  to  it,  to  be  able  sincerely  and  fully  to  confess  that 
another  has  greater  and  better  abilities  than  itself,  and  yet  to 
feel  no  envy,  no  discontent.  Many  a  man  will  not  allow  him- 
self to  see  the  superiority  of  others,  but  will  set  himself  instead 
most  assiduously  and  ingeniously  to  depreciate  their  gifts, — 
to  convince  himself  that  this  and  that  other  talent  for  which 
they  get  credit  are  no  true  talents, — and  that  their  reputations 
are  a  delusion,  while  his  own  merits  have  been  overlooked. 
The  narrow,  envious  heart  of  such  a  man — and  there  are  many 
such  men — cannot  bear  to  let  into  it  the  generous  thought  of 
another's  superiority.  And  then,  if  it  cannot  help  letting 
that  thought  in, — if  the  evidence  be  so  strong  as  to  overcome 
its  utmost  resistance, — its  envy  comes  out  only  all  the  more  ;  it 
grudges  the  man  the  gifts  God  has  given  him,  it  is  jealous  of 
every  little  petty  distinction  these  gifts  may  gain  him,  it  is 
grieved  even  at  the  good  these  gifts  do,  it  has  no  contentment 
with  or  gratitude  for  what  God  has  given  to  itself  because  He 
has  not  given  it  more,  and  it  murmurs  against  Him  as  if  He 
had  dealt  harshly  and  unjustly  with  it.  Oh !  it  is  a  hateful, 
a  wicked  temper  of  spirit  this,  and  it  will  be  but  a  mild  rebuke 
of  it,  although  true  to  the  very  letter,  if  God  only  says  to  those 
who  cherish  it,  "  I  have  done  you  no  wrong.  Is  it  not  lawful 
for  me  to  do  what  I  will  with  mine  own?  Is  thine  eye  evil 
because  I  am  good  ?  " 

Let  us  try,  through  God's  help,  to  free  ourselves  from  this 
mean  and  sinful  frame  of  character.  Let  us  discipline  our- 
selves to  acknowledge  all  that  is  really  true  about  ourselves, 
and  not  to  be  ashamed  of  any  inferiority  which  is  of  God's 
appointment  and  not  the  result  of  our  own  negligence  or  folly. 
It  is  for  God  alone  to  decide  whether  our  natural  abilities  shall 
be  great  or  small ;  it  is  for  us  thankfully  to  receive  and  dili- 


god's  sovereignty — man's  evil  eye.        251 

gently  to  use  them,  whether  great  or  small,  striving  to  make 
the  very  most  of  them  for  the  good  of  others  and  the  glory  of 
Him  who  gave  them.  If  we  do  so  it  will  probably  in  the  end 
matter  much  less  whether  they  have  been  great  or  small  than 
we  are  apt  to  think.  Two  talents  made  four  equal,  in  Heaven's 
reckoning,  five  talents  made  ten. 

I  need  only  mention  another,  a  fourth  class  of  cases  in  which 
the  sovereignty  of  God  meets  us.  He  in  the  exercise  of  His 
rights  as  the  Creator  gives  men  very  different  moral  disposi- 
tions, very  different  passions,  propensities,  and  tempers.  There 
are  instances  of  persons,  unhappy  persons,  so  strangely  consti- 
tuted morally,  with  such  apparently  irresistible  tendencies  to 
evil,  that  a  great  many  people  now  believe  that  there  may  be 
an  insanitv  which  affects  the  moral  nature  alone,  and  hurries 
into  deeds  of  horror  those  whose  intellects  are  sound.  Let  us 
suppose,  however,  that  those  who  have  come  to  this  conclusion 
have  gone  too  far,  yet  I  think  we  shall  at  least  not  deny  that 
there  are  persons  approaching  in  some  degree  to  this  state, 
persons  of  specially  low  moral  organisation,  who  have  coarse 
and  strong  passions,  tempers  violent  and  difficult  to  control, 
and  little  intellect,  and  a  feeble  power  of  moral  resistance. 
It  is  not  pleasant  to  think  of  such  a  fact,  but  we  must 
accustom  ourselves  to  look  on  many  a  fact  which  is  not 
pleasant,  and  this  seems  one  of  them,  that  God  gives  men 
very  differently  constituted  moral  natures. 

It  is  easy  to  see  how  it  may  give  rise  both  to  murmuring 
against  God  and  envying  of  fellow-men.  He  who  has  been  again 
and  again  overcome  and  humiliated  by  a  propensity  against 
which  he  has  prayed  and  struggled  is  apt  to  feel  as  if  God  had 
done  him  wrong  by  creating  him  with  a  passion  so  wild  and 
strong,  as  if  He  had  doomed  him  to  degradation  and  sin  by 
the  very  constitution  of  his  being ;  and  he  is  apt  also  to  envy 
those  who  are  free  from  the  violent  temper  or  the  strong  lust 
by  which  he  has  been  himself  so  often  enslaved  and  disgraced. 
"  Why  hast  Thou  made  me  thus  ?  "  he  murmurs  against  God. 
"How  hard  and  shameful  a  lot  is  mine,"  he  repiningly  com- 
plains, "compared  with  that  of  those  whom  I  can  see  to  have 
been  born  with  naturally  placid  and  amiable  dispositions,  with 
equable,  unexcitable  minds,  without  keen  cravings  for  pleasure 


252        god's  sovereignty — man's  evil  eye. 

or  indulgence,  and  for  whom  it  is  easy  to  resist  temptation  and 
to  practise  virtue."  But  such  murmurings  and  envyings  also 
are  unreasonable  and  unjust.  God  has  a  right  to  make  it  easier 
for  one  to  be  virtuous  than  another  if  He  please.  He  dooms  no 
one  to  sin  or  to  failure  in  the  struggle  against  sin,  because  how- 
ever strong  may  be  the  propensity  to  evil  in  any  one  whom  He 
holds  responsible  at  all,  He  is  ready  to  bestow  on  him  grace 
stronger  than  the  propensity — grace  sufficient  to  master  and 
control,  to  purify  and  sanctify  it.  He  takes  account  in  judging 
us  of  the  strength  of  our  passions,  and  will  approve  us  all  the 
more  if  those  against  which  we  have  faithfully  contended  have 
been  exceptionally  strong  and  perverse.  It  is  a  good  thing  to 
have  a  naturally  gentle  and  loving  disposition ;  but  in  God's 
sight  it  is  a  far  more  pleasing  and  noble  thing  to  have  subdued 
a  naturally  harsh  temper  into  gentleness  and  to  have  con- 
verted a  naturally  selfish  heart  into  a  generous  and  self-denying 
one.  The  grandest  triumphs  both  of  human  will  and  of  Divine 
grace  have  been  seen  not  in  the  naturally  amiable  and  consti- 
tutionally virtuous,  but  in  those  naturally  and  constitutionally 
the  reverse.  Here  too  the  last  may  be  first,  and  there  is  no 
respect  of  persons  with  God, 

Now,  in  conclusion,  this  is  the  burden  of  our  whole  argu- 
ment. With  whatever  God  is  pleased  to  ordain  for  us  let  us 
seek  to  be  content.  He  only  has  a  right  to  determine  our  cir- 
cumstances, our  abilities,  our  duties.  Let  us  acquiesce  in  His 
will  towards  us  whatever  it  be,  and  we  shall  not  fail  to  find,  as 
our  experience  grows,  that  it  is  a  good  and  gracious  one,  how- 
ever far  it  may  at  first  have  seemed  from  being  so.  Let  us 
commit  our  way  wholly  unto  the  Lord,  assured  that  the  result 
will  always  be  this  blessed  one,  that  although  it  may  still 
remain  so  far  true  that  we  do  not  fully  know  why  God  has 
made  this  and  the  other  circumstance  seemingly  to  our  disad- 
vantage,— that  this  is  one  of  the  Lord's  "  secrets," — yet  we  shall 
also  gradually  learn  to  know  that  this,  like  many  other  "  secrets  ' 
of  the  Lord,  is  "with  them  that  fear  Him,"  for  our  whole 
life  once  submitted  to  God's  will  and  guidance  will  turn  out  to 
be  a  reason  for  what  He  has  done,  and  seeming  disadvantages 
will  be  found  to  have  been  real  helps,  seeming  signs  of  want  of 
love  real  proofs  of  the  tenderest  love.     Let  our  care  be  not  to 


god's  sovereignty — man's  evil  eye.        253 

choose  our  tasks  but  to  choose  to  do  them  well ;  let  us  not 
spend  our  time  in  idle  talking  about  what  we  loould  have  done  if 
God  had  only  given  us  greatei'  powers  and  more  advantages 
than  He  has  seen  fit  to  do,  and  still  less  in  sinful  complaining 
that  He  has  not  been  liberal  unto  us,  and  cannot  expect  much 
from  us ;  but  let  us  use  honestly  and  heartily  in  His  service 
whatever  powers  and  advantages  we  have.  And  far,  far  be 
from  us  envy  of  any  advantages  which  our  fellow-workers 
may  have  received  from  God,  or  of  any  good  which  they  may 
be  able  to  do  for  His  cause ;  but  may  ours  be  the  true  and 
loving  hearts  which  rejoice  in  the  good  of  others  as  in  their 
own,  and  to  which  every  advance  of  Christ's  kingdom  causes  a 
sacred,  sincere,  and  deep  joy.  Such  hearts  as  these,  and  the 
lives  which  flow  from  them,  my  dear  friends,  may  God  of  His 
mercy  and  love,  through  His  Holy  Spirit  and  for  the  sake  of 
His  dear  Son,  grant  unto  us  all,  that  we  may  do  His  work  here 
and  enjoy  His  blessedness  hereafter.  And  to  His  name  be  the 
glory  now  and  for  ever.     Amen. 


XXIII. 

RENDER    UNTO    CAESAR    THE    THINGS    WHICH 

ARE   C^SAR'S.i 

"  Render,  therefore,  unto  Ca'sar  the  things  which  are  Csesar's  ;  and  unto  God  the 
things  that  are  God's." — Matthew  xxii.  21. 

TO  understand  these  words  of  our  Lord  we  must  take  into 
account  the  circumstances  in  which  they  were  spoken. 
His  life  on  earth  was  near  a  close ;  His  trial  and  crucifixion 
were  at  hand.  His  enemies  had  resolved  on  getting  rid  of 
Him ;  but  His  enthusiastic  Messianic  reception  by  the  multi- 
tude as  He  entered  Jerusalem  to  keep  the  Passover  showed 
them  the  danger  of  directly  employing  force  against  Him  ;  and 
so  they  had  recourse  to  craft,  and  sought  to  destroy  His  reputa- 
tion in  order  that  they  might  take  His  life.  Hence  the  plot  of 
the  Pharisees  and  Herodians  of  which  we  read  in  the  verses 
preceding  the  text. 

They  resolved  to  put  a  question  to  Him  which  could  only  be 
so  answered  as  either  to  discredit  Him  with  the  Jewish  people 
or  bring  Him  into  conflict  with  the  Roman  magistrates.  It 
was  a  question  which  He  could  not  refuse  to  answer ;  which  as 
a  claimant  to  be  the  Messianic  King  He  was  bound  to  answer ; 
a  question  which  was  troubling  many  an  honest  Jewish  con- 
science. Those  who  devised  it  seem  to  have  been  afraid,  how- 
ever, that  He  might  not  answer,  and  so  they  approached  Him 
with  words  of  insincere  praise  of  His  honesty  and  fearlessness, 
hoping  thus  to  deceive  Him,  and  to  get  from  Him  such  an 
answer  as  they  wished.  "  Master,  we  know  that  Thou  art  true, 
and  teachest  the  way  of  God  in  truth,  neither  carest  Thou  for 
any  man:  for  Thou  regardest  not  the  person  of  men."  Then 
comes  their  question.  "Tell  us,  therefore,  what  thinkest 
Thou  ?     Is  it  lawful  to  give  tribute  unto  Csesar,  or  not  ?  "     In 

1  Preached  in  St  Cuthbert's,  Edinburgh,  and  in  the  Parish  Church  of  Scone 

during  the  Parliamentary  Election  of  1894. 

254 


RENDER    CiESAR'S    THINGS    TO    C^SAR.  255 

other  words,  Is  it  right  or  not  for  a  Jew,  a  man  under  the 
law  and  government  which  God  had  specially  and  directly- 
instituted,  a  subject  of  the  Theocracy,  to  pay  the  poll-tax  which 
the  Roman  Emperor  claimed  as  the  ruler  of  Israel ;  to  render 
to  Cffisar  the  denarius,  the  silver  penny,  the  ordinary  day's  wage 
of  a  labourer,  which  he  exacted,  and  thereby  to  acknowledge 
himself  C£esar's  servant? 

This  question  a  vast  majority  of  the  Jewish  people  might 
honestly  have  put;  but  those  who  put  it  on  the  occasion 
referred  to  did  so  dishonestly,  hypocritically,  with  a  wicked 
intention ;  not  because  it  was  troubling  and  vexing  them,  and 
they  wished  enlightenment  and  peace  of  mind,  but  because  they 
wished  so  to  entansrle  Christ  in  His  talk  as  to  ruin  Him.  But 
He  perceived  their  wickedness,  their  cruel  and  malicious  purpose, 
and  the  base  and  double  way  in  which  they  sought  to  accom- 
plish it,  and  by  a  single  word  He  unmasked  and  exposed  them, 
showed  them  that  they  had  not  deceived  Him,  and  that  He 
really  was  what  they  had  in  flattery  and  with  evil  design  said 
He  was — one  who  spoke  the  truth  without  fear  or  respect  of 
persons.  For  as  such  an  one  He  now  spoke  to  them — "Why 
tempt  ye  Me,  hypocrites  ?  "  With  His  calm,  truthful,  search- 
ing eyes  resting  on  these  wretched  men,  that  one  word,  hypo- 
crites, was  all  that  was  needed  in  the  way  of  rebuke.  The 
significance  of  it  would  only  have  been  marred,  the  impressive- 
ness  of  it  only  weakened,  by  any  addition. 

But  He  answered  the  question  of  these  men.  For  He  wished 
that  there  should  be  no  ambiguity,  no  doubt,  as  to  what  His 
doctrine  was.  Perhaps  He  indicated,  however,  by  the  "Why 
tempt  ye  me  ?  "  that  the  question  need  not  have  been  asked ; 
and  would  not  have  been  asked  by  any  one  who  had  given 
proper  attention  to  His  teaching  as  to  the  nature  of  His 
kingdom.  However,  He  answered  it.  He  asked  for  a  sight  of 
the  tribute  money,  and  when  a  denarius  was  handed  to  Him 
He  inquired  of  them  whose  was  the  image  and  inscription 
which  He  saw  on  it.  Both  the  likeness  and  the  name  inscribed 
were  those  of  a  Cajsar,  probably  of  Tiberius  Csesar.  The  answer, 
therefore,  was  "  Csesar's."  Bat  that  meant  that  Caesar  had 
been  accepted  as  their  master;  that  they  were  circulating 
Caesar's  coin  among  them ;   that  they  were  receiving  services 


256         RENDER  Cesar's  things  to  c^sar. 

from  Cfesar,  and  had  engaged  to  render  services  to  Csesar  in 
return. 

The  Jews  might  have  been  wrong  in  submitting  to  Csesar ; 
it  might  be  right  for  them  to  renounce  their  allegiance  and  to 
endeavour  to  throw  off  the  yoke  of  Caesar.  Christ  was  not 
questioned  on  these  points,  and  He  said  nothing  regarding 
them.  If  He  had  been  questioned  on  them  He  would  probably 
have  refused  to  answer,  as  He  had  not  come  to  earth  to  deal 
with  such  questions ;  or  possibly  He  would  have  advised  them 
out  of  humanity  not  to  draw  the  sword,  seeing  that  if  they  did 
they  must  perish  by  the  sword,  as  no  supernatural  aid  would  be 
granted  to  them  in  a  struggle  with  Rome.  But  as  to  the  question 
put  to  Him  He  answers  it  plainly.  The  coin  they  had  showed 
Him  of  itself  clearly  testified  that  they  were  confessedly  and  in 
fact  the  subjects  of  C£esar,  ruled  by  him,  and  under  obligations 
to  him.  So  long  as  the  rule  of  Cgesar  and  obligations  to  Caesar 
lasted  they  were  clearly  bound  to  yield  the  obedience  and  pay 
the  tribute  which  they  had  promised  to  give.  There  could  be 
no  opposition  between  rendering  unto  Caesar  what  was  Caesar's, 
and  unto  God  what  was  God's ;  on  the  contrary,  duty  to  God 
required  them  to  pay  to  Caesar,  as  to  every  one,  all  that  they 
owed.  Therefore,  said  our  Lord,  "Eender  unto  Caesar  the 
things  which  are  Caesar's,  and  unto  God  the  things  which 
are  God's." 

It  was  a  noble,  a  sublime  answer.  Christ's  enemies  thought 
that  they  had  contrived  a  trap  into  which  Christ  must  fall,  and 
declare  Himself  either  a  defender  or  the  rival  of  Csesar.  They 
only  afforded  Him  an  opportunity  of  making  it  once  more 
perfectly  clear  that  He  had  not  come  into  the  world  either 
to  be  the  defender  or  the  rival  of  Caesar,  or  to  mingle  in  any 
political  contentions,  and  at  the  same  time  an  opportunity  of 
affirming  a  principle  which  should  underlie  and  regulate  all 
/  politics — the  principle  that  politics  is  dependent  on  morality, 
and  that  morality  is  based  on  the  law  of  God. 

The  nobleness,  the  sublimity  of  the  answer  lies  chiefly,  how- 
ever, in  its  simple  truthfulness.  Many  have  so  misunderstood 
it  as  to  see  in  it  a  skilful  evasion  of  the  question  which  was  put. 
They  have  admired  the  ingenuity  by  which  Christ,  as  they  say, 
got  rid  of  the  dilemma  contrived  for  His  hurt,  and  avoided  the 


RENDER  Cesar's  things  to  c^sar.  257 

snare  set  to  entrap  Him.  I  should  be  sorry  to  have  to  think 
that  Christ  ever  exercised  any  ingenuity  in  skilful  evasion. 
He  displayed  none  of  it  on  the  occasion  under  consideration. 
His  answer  was  perfectly  unambiguous,  absolutely  honest. 
He  evaded  no  dilemma.  He  said,  Give  to  Ceesar  this  tribute 
money,  and  whatever  else  is  his.  He  tried  to  escape  out  of  no 
difficulty.  He  had  taught  that  He  was  a  King,  and  He  did  not 
withdraw  a  word  of  that  teaching ;  so  that  His  enemies  were 
left  able  to  pretend  that  He  was  the  foe  of  Caesar.  He  had 
taught  also  that  His  kingdom  was  not  of  this  world,  and  that 
He  was  not  going  to  interfere  with  Cffisar  ;  but  the  people  were 
unwilling  to  understand  Him  ;  they  sang  Hosannas  to  Him 
because  they  hoped  that  He  would  deliver  Israel.  Now,  again, 
He  speaks ;  but  it  is  only  finally  and  bitterly  to  disappoint 
them ;  only  to  tell  them  that  He  will  countenance  no  revolt, 
put  forth  no  effort  to  break  the  chains  which  bound  Judea, 
satisfy  no  patriotic  illusion.  He  speaks  freely,  plainly,  boldly ; 
but  it  is  to  turn  away  the  hearts  of  the  people  from  Himself,  to 
destroy  His  own  popularity,  to  seal  His  own  doom. 

Hail,  Jesus,  Master,  we  know  indeed  that  Thou  art  true,  the 
Truth.  Thou  art  the  King  we  need,  whom  we  would  honour, 
love,  and  obey.  Oh,  may  we  live  in  Thee  that  we  may  be 
true  like  Thee,  fearing  no  man,  neither  regarding  the  person 
of  men. 

"  Render  unto  Ctesar  the  things  which  are  Caesar's."  What 
do  these  words  mean  for  us  ?  We  shall  see  as  we  proceed.  Of 
course,  they  are  far  from  meaning  to  us  what  they  meant  to 
the  Jews.  We,  thank  God,  are  a  free  people,  subject  to  no 
alien  government,  no  foreign  conqueror.  They  are  far  even 
from  meaning  to  us  what  they  would  have  meant  to  the 
Romans.  We  are  under  no  Caesar  in  the  sense  of  an  absolute 
ruler,  a  personal  despot.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  in  that  sense 
the  whole  world  may  soon  see  the  last  of  the  Caesars.  For  us 
here  and  now  in  Britain  C^sar  is  simply  the  Civil  Government, 
or  rather  the  nation,  the  community,  as  represented  by  the 
Civil  Government,  or  governing  itself  in  civil  affairs.  But  the 
words,  "  Render  unto  Caesar  the  things  which  are  Caesar's," 
have  not,  therefore,  lost  for  us  their  significance  and  import- 
ance.    Nay,  there  is  surely  a  far  stronger  call  on  us,  as  the 

R 


258         RENDER  Cesar's  things  to  c^sar. 

free  citizens  of  the  great  historic  nation  in  which  God  has 
graciously  cast  our  lot,  to  remember  the  civil  responsibilities 
which  lie  upon  us,  and  the  civil  ties  which  bind  us  to  the  com- 
munity as  a  whole,  than  there  would  have  been  if  we  had  been 
in  the  position  either  of  the  Jew  or  the  Roman. 

It  would  ill  become  us  to  forget  them.  For  there  is  not  one 
among  us  who  does  not  receive  great  and  precious  benefits 
through  his  connection  with  the  government  of  the  realm. 
Our  quiet,  the  safety  of  our  persons  and  property,  our  work 
and  wages,  our  freedom  of  speech,  our  liberty  to  worship  God 
according  to  the  dictates  of  conscience — all  these,  and  countless 
other  advantages,  are  secured  to  us  by  its  power,  preserved  and 
protected  by  the  might  and  majesty  of  the  laws.  The  industry 
of  the  labourer,  the  skill  of  the  artisan,  the  enterprise  of  the 
merchant,  the  hardiness  of  the  sailor,  the  valour  of  the  soldier 
and  the  wisdom  of  the  statesman,  the  sweet  fancies  of  the  poet 
and  the  abstruse  researches  of  the  philosopher,  talents,  virtues, 
and  graces — all  these,  under  that  happy  constitution  which  our 
fathers,  having  bought  and  sealed  and  consecrated  it  even  with 
their  blood,  have  handed  down  to  us,  work  together  for  good  to 
the  humble  villager  in  the  remotest  hamlet,  and  contribute 
somewhat  to  bless  and  beautify  his  life,  although  he  may  not 
know  whence  or  how  the  benefit  comes.  Responsibility  is  always 
in  proportion  to  privilege.  Where  much  is  given,  there  much 
is  required. 

"  Render  unto  Csesar  the  things  which  are  Caesar's."  What 
are  these  things  ?  They  are  many ;  for  the  precept  is  of  wide 
application.  It  gives  expression  to  a  comprehensive  principle. 
It  enjoins  no  less  than  the  rendering  to  the  supreme  civil 
authority  under  which  we  live  all  to  which  it  is  entitled  ;  it 
enjoins  no  less  than  the  fulfilment  of  all  civil  duty. 

It  was  originally  given,  as  you  perceive,  with  reference  to 
payment  of  tribute  to  the  Roman  emperor.  Tribute  we  are 
fortunately  not  called  upon  to  pay.  A  people  which  pays 
tribute  is  a  humiliated  people,  a  people  at  least  partially 
enslaved,  a  people  extremely  likely  to  seek  opportunities  for 
revolt  and  revenge.  The  nearest  thing  to  tribute  which  we  can 
pay  in  Britain  is  something  which  is  yet  essentially  different 
from  it,  and  in  the  payment  of  which  there  is  no  humiliation, 


RENDER   CJESAR's   THINGS   TO   CAESAR.  259 

but  only  the  manifest  performance  of  duty, — I  mean  the  taxes, 
our  shares  or  proportions  of  the  public  burdens,  of  the  expenses 
necessarily  incurred  by  the  nation  in  performing  its  national 
functions.  These,  it  is  obvious,  we  are  bound  honestly  and 
cheerfully  to  pay.  They  are  indispensable  to  the  national  well- 
being  and  the  discharge  of  national  duty ;  they  are  so  applied, 
in  this  country  at  least,  as  to  benefit  every  individual  in  it. 
In  no  nation  in  the  world  are  they  more  justly  apportioned,  or 
more  honestly  administered,  than  in  our  own.  Gradually  our 
statesmen  of  all  parties  have  come  to  see  clearly  that  the  justest 
and,  on  the  whole,  least  burdensome  taxes  are  the  most  re- 
munerative. There  is  no  excuse  for  our  endeavouring  to  keep 
from  Caesar  this  portion  of  what  is  his. 

But  no  one  can  be  so  foolish  as  to  fancy  that  he  fulfils  all 
civil  duty  by  merely  contributing  to  the  revenue  of  the  nation 
so  far  as  it  is  compulsory  for  him  to  do  so.  The  nation  has  a 
right  to  much  else  from  us  than  a  little  money. 

For  instance,  secondly,  it  has  a  right  to  our  sincere,  and 
intelligent,  and  unselfish  interest  in  its  welfare.  It  is  natural 
and  almost  inevitable  that  we  should  love  the  land  of  our  birth, 
of  our  forefathers,  and  of  the  famous  memories  which  we  have 
been  taught  from  infancy  to  cherish.  He  who  does  not  must 
be  wanting  in  some  of  the  essential  feelings  of  our  common 
humanity,  or  have  done  violence  to  some  of  its  primitive  in- 
stincts. It  is  in  perfect  accordance  with  the  will  of  God  that 
we  should  possess  this  love.  He  desires  that  our  country  should 
be  dear  to  us.  He  demands  only  that  our  love  should  be  purged 
from  ignorance,  so  as  to  be  no  blind  instinct  such  as  makes  the 
wild  beast  defend  its  forest  or  mountain  lair  ;  and  purged  from 
selfishness,  so  as  to  manifest  itself  not  in  contemjDt  and  enmity 
towards  strangers,  but  in  readiness  to  make  whatever  sacrifices 
the  good  of  our  own  countrymen  calls  for. 

It  is  only  when  the  love  of  country  is  thus  enlightened  and 
disinterested  that  it  is  worthy  of  the  name  of  patriotism. 
Then  it  is  a  most  admirable  and  excellent  affection.  It  is  in 
the  State  what  brotherly  love  is  in  the  Church — so  binding  the 
various  individuals  of  the  community  together  into  a  single 
body,  that  "  whether  one  member  suffer,  all  the  members  suffer 
with  it ;  or  one  member  be  honoured,  all  the  members  rejoice 


260  RENDER  Cesar's  things  to  c^sar. 

with  it."  This  obligation  which  is  upon  us  to  love  our  country, 
and  to  take  a  lively  interest  in  the  welfare  of  those  who  inhabit 
it,  does  not  in  the  least  imply  that  there  is  to  be  any  neglect  of 
private  duties  through  interference  with  public  affairs.  It  is  a 
grievous  misfortune  both  for  individuals  themselves  and  the 
public  when  that  occurs.  It  is  a  sure  symptom  that  the  body 
politic  is  in  a  diseased  and  dangerous  condition  when  the  masses 
of  the  community  become  engrossed  in  political  agitation. 
Patriotism  is  very  rarely  the  cause  of  such  commotion.  It  is 
when  the  sacred  name  of  patriotism  is  profaned  to  ignoble 
purposes,  when  under  the  pretence  of  patriotism  men  carry  on 
a  mean  scramble  for  personal  advantages,  or  class  arrays  itself 
in  hatred  and  hostility  to  class,  it  is  then  that  private  duties 
are  forgotten  or  despised ;  that  individuals  start  up  as  teachers 
on  subjects  the  very  elements  of  which  they  have  never  learned  ; 
that  the  peace  of  society  is  endangered  and  its  progress  im- 
peded. A  true  interest  in  our  country's  welfare,  a  pure  and 
honest  patriotism,  is  never  the  source  of  these  excesses.  What 
is  true  of  the  charity  which  St  Paul  eulogises  is  true  of  it.  It 
is,  in  fact,  that  same  charity  in  a  different  sphere,  and  modified 
accordingly.  It  vaunts  not  itself ;  it  is  not  easily  provoked ;  it 
seeks  not  its  own.  It,  in  other  words,  carefully  conforms  to 
all  the  conditions  on  which  the  harmony  and  happiness  of  a 
nation  depend. 

Thirdly,  obedience  ought  to  be  rendered.  The  Apostles  have 
enjoined  us  to  do  so  in  a  manner  so  earnest  and  emphatic,  that 
it  was  long  a  prevalent  dogma  that  this  obedience  had  virtually 
no  limits,  no  measure — that  in  no  circumstances  could  resist- 
ance be  justifiable.  The  dogma  of  "  the  divine  right  of  kings," 
as  it  was  called,  was  maintained  in  a  revolting  and  debasing 
form.  And  as  presented  it  was  a  mere  fiction.  God  has  placed 
kings  and  other  magistrates  in  authority  to  promote  public 
happiness,  to  carry  out  public  justice;  but  He  has  given  them 
no  other  authority,  and  that,  instead  of  being  a  justification  of 
arbitrary  and  oppressive  government,  is  the  strongest  condem- 
nation of  it.  Caesar  has  no  right  to  put  himself  in  the  place  of 
God.     It  is  at  our  peril  if  we  obey  him  at  the  expense  of  God. 

In  the  present  day  there  are  those  who  believe  in  the  Divine 
right  of  the  people,  the  so-called  sovereignty  of  the  people,  in 


RENDER  Caesar's  things  to  c^sar.  261 

as  degrading  and  servile  a  manner  as  their  forefathers  believed 
in  the  Divine  right  of  kings.  For  them  whatever  the  majority 
of  the  people,  or  of  their  representatives,  decree  is  to  be 
regarded  as  ultimately  right  and  absolutely  entitled  to  obedi- 
ence. I  believe  in  the  Divine  right  only  of  God  Himself,  in 
the  absolute  sovereignty  only  of  Him  who  is  absolutely  just 
and  righteous.  I  shall,  I  trust,  never  acknowledge  the  Divine 
right  or  absolute  sovereignty  of  any  one  else ;  or  ever  hesitate 
to  disobey  any  law  of  monarch,  or  parliament,  or  people  clearly 
contrary  in  my  view  to  that  Divine  law  to  which  monarch, 
parliament,  and  the  whole  body  of  the  people  owe  allegiance 
equally  with  the  humblest  individual  citizen. 

But  while  I  maintain  it  to  be  not  only  my  right  but  my  duty 
to  break  any  law,  passed  by  whomsoever  it  may  be,  which 
plainly  breaks  God's  law,  I  must  take  care  so  to  break  it  as  not 
myself  in  so  doing  to  break  God's  law.  I  must  not  in  opposing 
an  evil  law  betake  myself  to  evil  ways,  to  falsehood  or  treachery, 
cruelty,  plunder,  and  murder,  as,  under  the  plea  of  resisting 
evil  laws,  many  did,  not  long  ago,  in  a  part  of  this  empire.  A 
man  who  respects  morality,  who  honours  the  law  of  God,  who 
accepts  the  precepts  of  Christ,  can  have  no  part  in  action  of 
this  kind ;  can  have  no  sympathy  with  those  implicated  in  it ; 
must  condemn  all  who  would  condone  it  or  excuse  it.  Those 
who  honour  God's  law  never  fail  to  give  reasonable  obedience 
to  human  law,  never  countenance  real  disorder  or  crime  in  the 
State. 

The  direct  demands  which  the  well-ordered  government  of 
this  realm  makes  upon  our  obedience  are  so  few,  and  light,  and 
just,  that  it  would  be  inexcusable  indeed  if  they  were  not  cheer- 
fully responded  to.  It  has  come,  in  fact,  to  be  the  case,  that 
instead  of  troublesome  personal  services  being  exacted  as  in 
former  times,  the  chief  service  we  can  now  render  to  our  country 
is  to  prosecute,  each  one  of  us  in  his  own  place  and  relations, 
the  private  pursuits  he  is  engaged  in,  quietly,  diligently,  justly, 
piously.  A  sober,  righteous,  godly  life — that  is  now  the  main 
.substance  of  what  is  asked  from  us.  That  which  secures  our 
own  temporal  and  eternal  welfare  contributes  most  also  to  the 
strength  of  the  nation,  to  the  happiness  of  the  community. 

Fourthly,  the  nation,  or  the  government  of  the  nation,  has 


262         RENDER  Cesar's  things  to  c^sar. 

a  right  to  expect  from  us  careful,  independent,  disinterested 
thought  as  to  what  is  for  the  real  good  of  the  nation ;  and  that, 
whenever  there  is  a  call  on  us  to  do  so,  we  honestly  act  on  the 
conclusions  to  which  such  thought  leads  us.  God  also  demands 
this  from  us.  In  a  country  like  ours,  where  public  opinion  has 
so  powerful  an  influence,  we  are  obviously  bound  to  try  to  con- 
tribute to  public  opinion  only  independent  and  well-considered 
decisions.  When  it  becomes  our  duty  to  take  part  in  a  transac- 
tion which  may  or  must  seriously  affect  the  prosperity  of  the 
nation,  we  are  bound  to  realise  the  greatness  of  the  responsi- 
bility which  lies  upon  us,  and  that  we  shall  be  unworthy 
citizens,  and  sin  against  God,  if  we  do  not  prefer  the  welfare 
of  the  nation  to  the  triumph  of  any  party,  or  to  any  personal 
ends. 

My  friends,  this  consideration  cannot  be  too  much  present  to 
us  just  now.  Not  in  the  days  of  any  of  us  has  there  been  an 
election  the  result  of  which  is  likely  so  seriously  to  affect  the 
greatness  of  Britain,  its  unity  as  an  empire,  the  future  of  Pro- 
testant and  still  more  of  Roman  Catholic  Ireland,  the  fate  of 
the  Church  of  Scotland,  and  the  prospects  of  religion  in  Scot- 
land, as  that  which  is  so  soon  to  be  decided.  Deeply  impressed 
although  I  am  with  the  seriousness  of  the  situation,  and  the 
magnitude  of  the  dangers  which  threaten  us,  and  which  we 
may  easily  bring  upon  the  nation  by  our  inconsiderateness  and 
want  of  earnestness,  yet  I  shall  not  depart  from  that  position 
of  political  neutrality  which  befits  God's  house ;  but  I  only 
fulfil  my  duty  in  this  house  when  I  solemnly  remind  every  one 
who  has  the  function  of  an  elector  to  discharge  that  he  will  be 
responsible  to  God  for  the  manner  in  which  he  discharges  it, 
and  that  he  will  grievously  err  and  sin  if  in  the  discharge  of  it 
he  allow  himself  to  be  influenced  by  any  other  motive  than  a 
desire  for  the  national  good,  for  the  advancement  of  true 
religion,  for  the  glory  of  God. 

All  that  we  owe  to  Csesar  we  owe  also  to  God.  All  that  we 
render  unto  Caesar  we  should  render  as  unto  God.  Whenever 
we  have  to  do  with  duty  we  have  to  do  with  God.  It  is  He 
who  assigns  it ;  He  who  gives  power  to  perform  it ;  He  who 
will  judge  how  it  has  been  performed,  and  approve  or  condemn, 
reward  or  punish,  accordingly. 


RENDER  Cesar's  things  to  c^sar.  263 

Therefore,  I  would  say,  finally,  that  prayer  to  God  for  the 
nation,  and  that  He  may  enable  us  to  discharge  aright  all  our 
duty  to  the  nation,  is  itself  a  duty  to  the  nation.  The  nation 
has  a  right  to  such  prayer.  The  Lord  reigneth.  He  doeth 
according  to  His  will  among  the  armies  of  heaven  and  among 
the  children  of  men.  He  raiseth  up  and  pulleth  down,  accord- 
ing as  it  seemeth  good  to  Him.  The  issues  of  prosperity  and 
adversity  are  in  His  hands.  Therefore  prayer  will  avail  much. 
The  earnest  prayer  of  the  true  Christian  at  least  will  avail 
much. 

Let  us,  then,  prepare  ourselves  for  duty  to  the  nation  by 
seeking  from  God  the  enlightenment  of  mind,  the  singleness 
and  disinterestedness  of  heart,  the  strength  of  character  which 
we  need.  His  grace  is  required  to  make  us  genuine  patriots, 
loyal  subjects,  faithful  citizens ;  let  us  not  fail  to  seek  it.  Let 
us  pray  that  He  may  show  us  the  folly  and  danger  of  any 
policy  which  will  weaken  the  nation,  restrict  liberty,  lower 
morality,  increase  the  power  of  religious  superstition,  or  check 
the  growth  of  material  prosperity.  For  all  in  authority,  let  us 
pray  that  they  may  have  the  spirit  of  wisdom  and  judgment, 
and  faithfully  discharge  the  responsibilities  of  their  offices, 
while  we,  under  them,  giving  them  all  due  respect,  may  lead 
quiet  and  peaceable  lives,  and  adorn  the  doctrine  of  God  our 
Saviour. 

For  our  country,  our  native  land,  which  so  many  associations 
have  endeared  and  hallowed  to  our  hearts,  let  us  pray  that  God 
would  be  pleased  to  bless  and  prosper  it,  at  home  and  abroad, 
in  the  persons  of  all  classes,  and  in  all  its  interests.  Especially 
let  us  implore  that  it  may  be  made  wholly  the  kingdom  of  our 
Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  that  at  His  name  every  knee 
among  us  may  bow,  and  every  heart  among  us  leap  for  joy. 

May  God  follow  with  His  blessing  what  has  now  been  said. 
And  to  His  name  be  praise,  honour,  and  glory  for  evermore. 
Amen. 


XXIV. 

WORK   WHILE   IT   IS   DAY.i 

"  I  must  work  the  works  of  Him  that  sent  Me,  while  it  is  day ;  the  night  cometh, 
when  no  man  can  work." — John  ix.  4. 

THESE  words,  as  you  will  perceive,  were  spoken  by  our 
Lord  just  before  He  proceeded  to  heal  a  blind  man. 
The  time,  He  knew,  was  drawing  near  when  His  work  on 
earth  would  be  finished,  and  He  wished  to  leave  no  part  of 
it  imperfect,  no  act  which  He  had  been  sent  to  do  undone, 
no  deed  of  mercy  by  which  He  could  show  forth  the  glory 
of  the  Father  and  the  character  of  His  own  Gospel  unaccom- 
plished. The  words  in  the  text  by  which  He  gave  expression 
to  this  feeling  are  as  clear  and  plain  as  they  are  striking  and 
beautiful,  so  that  of  mere  explanation  they  scarcely  need  any. 
The  only  point,  indeed,  in  regard  to  which  difficulty  has  been 
felt  in  their  interpretation  is  whether  our  Lord  meant  by 
"  the  works  of  Him  that  sent  Him,"  the  works  given  Him  to 
do  by  Him  who  sent  Him,  or  such  works  as  He  who  sent  Him 
worketh,  namely,  works  of  power  and  mercy.  But  these  two 
meanings,  you  will  observe,  by  no  means  exclude  each  other, 
nor  was  there  any  necessity  for  our  Lord  to  distinguish  them, 
or  to  choose  the  one  and  to  reject  the  other.  He  is  rather 
to  be  supposed  to  have  had  both  meanings  indissolubly  in 
His  thought.  For  the  works  which  the  Father  sent  the  Son 
to  do  were  just  the  works  which  the  Father  Himself  worketh; 
the  works  which  the  Son  wrought  among  men  were  just  the 
works  which  showed  forth  the  character  of  the  nature  and 
working  of  Him  from  whom  He  came  and  to  whom  He  was 
•about  to  return.  To  reveal  His  Father  to  the  children  of 
men  for  their  salvation,  that  was  the  great  and  comprehensive 
work  which  His  Father  had  given  Him  to  do,  and  on  which 

1  Preached  in  St  George's  Church,  Edinburgh,  on  first  Sabbath  of  a  new  year. 

264 


WORK    WHILE   IT   IS   DAY.  265 

His  own  heart  was  set,  and  in  that  work  all  His  particular 
works,  the  healing  of  this  blind  man  among  them,  were  in- 
cluded, so  that  we  have  to  take  His  words  in  their  general, 
large,  obvious  sense,  and  may  safely  dismiss  from  our  minds 
the  distinctions  and  discussions  of  critics  and  commentators. 

Our  Lord  spoke  these  words  concerning  Himself,  not  con- 
cerning other  men,  not  concerning  us.  Even  He  found  a 
motive  and  incentive  to  His  zeal  in  the  knowledge  that  He 
was  here  on  earth  but  for  a  short  time,  with  a  great  task 
to  perform  before  the  hour  of  His  departure  arrived.  He 
felt  that  when  He  had  so  little  time  in  the  world  He  must 
lose  no  fragment  of  it,  but  must  employ  every  instant  in 
glorifying  the  Father  and  doing  good  to  men.  As  long  as 
He  was  in  the  world,  as  long  as  the  day  of  His  activity  in 
human  form  lasted.  He  was  Himself  the  light  of  the  world ; 
but  that  day  was  fast  drawing  to  a  close,  and,  therefore,  there 
was  the  more  need  that  He  should  allow  the  light  which  was 
in  Him  to  shine  forth  brightly  and  without  interruption.  To 
study  the  words  of  our  text  in  this  their  immediate  and 
primary  application  with  reference  to  our  Lord  Himself  and 
to  His  work  might  well  suggest  many  profitable  thoughts. 
It  is  not  thus,  however,  that  I  wish  to-day  to  consider  them. 
They  are  words  of  universal  applicability ;  words  which  all 
men  may  use,  and  solemn  words  for  any  man  to  use.  There 
is  not  one  of  us  who  has  not  had  a  work  given  him  to  do, 
and  who  has  not  merely  a  short  day  at  the  longest  in  which 
to  do  it,  and  towards  whom  the  night  in  which  he  cannot 
work  is  not  rapidly  drawing  near.  This  seems  the  reference 
in  which  it  will  be  most  appropriate  for  us  to  consider  the 
text  now,  when  we  have  just  crossed  the  threshold  of  another 
year,  when  thoughts  about  the  shortness,  the  changes,  and 
vicissitudes  of  existence,  about  duty  and  about  destiny,  about 
the  past,  the  present,  and  future,  about  the  world  that  is 
and  the  world  to  come,  are  in  many  ways  naturally  suggested 
to  us. 

Each  man  has  a  great  work  given  him  to  do,  which  he  is 
in  great  danger  of  not  doing.  The  contemplation  of  human 
life  cannot  but  constantly  fill  us  with  sadness,  just  because  it 
is  so  seldom  what  it  might  be  and  what  it  ought  to  be.     When 


266  WORK    WHILE    IT    IS    DAY. 

we  look  at  other  things  we  see  each  object  in  the  world  filling 
its  proper  place ;  doing  what  it  was  obviously  created  to  do, 
no  more  and  no  less ;  acting  according  to  and  acting  up  to 
the  true  laws  of  the  nature  which  it  has  received ;  but  when 
we  look  at  the  life  of  man  there  is  a  strange  contrast,  for  it 
ever  falls  far  below  and  is  often  utterly  unlike  what  it  should 
be.  Man's  nature  has  powers  and  capacities  for  good  which 
would  produce  the  most  blessed  results  if  well  developed  and 
well  directed ;  it  contains  in  germ  an  amazing  wealth  of 
faculties,  to  the  progress  and  perfection  of  which  scarcely 
any  limits  can  be  set ;  it  may  rise  to  the  sublimest  heights ; 
it  may  attain  to  stages  of  excellence  almost  inconceivable ; 
it  may  advance  from  glory  to  glory  without  end ;  it  has  the 
image  of  God  upon  it,  the  seed  of  an  imperishable  life  within 
it ;  and  the  firmament  with  all  its  stars  is  mean  in  comparison 
with  what  it  would  be  in  any  man  who  was  true  to  his  own 
true  self. 

A  child  is  born  to  a  beggar.  It  may  grow  up  untrained 
and  untaught,  ignorant,  rude,  and  brutal ;  it  may  become 
a  thief  and  a  murderer;  it  may  die  unregretted  in  banish- 
ment or  on  the  scaffold;  and  yet  in  that  new-born  babe 
there  are  boundless  possibilities  of  good,  although  they  will 
never  come  to  be  realities ;  in  that  little  body  covered  with 
a  beggar's  rag  there  is  a  soul  capable  of  containing  far 
more  knowledge  than  ever  Newton  possessed,  with  greater 
powers  of  action  than  were  exerted  even  by  a  Luther  or  a 
Napoleon,  and  with  the  rudiments  of  affections  which  might 
have  flowered  into  a  holiness  surpassing  that  of  Edwards  or 
Brainard.  There  is  something  more  solemn  in  the  soul  of  a 
child  than  in  all  the  victories  of  kings  or  the  achievements  of 
genius.     So  much  greater  is  man  than  any  of  man's  works. 

When  we  turn  from  human  nature  in  its  true  essential  self 
to  human  nature  in  its  actual  results,  a  terrible  disappointment 
awaits  us.  This  human  nature,  which  ought  to  be  so  great 
and  noble,  is  everywhere  seen  assuming  the  meanest  and 
most  ignoble  forms.  There  are  whole  nations  where  it  is 
utterly  degraded  and  brutalised,  their  inhabitants  bowing 
down  to  hideous  idols  and  giving  themselves  up  to  the  prac- 
tice of  inhuman  vices.     And  even  in  our  own  highly-favoured 


WORK   WHILE    IT    IS    DAY.  267 

land  there  are  multitudes  dead  to  infinite  and  eternal  realities 
and  alive  only  to  sensuous  objects  and  selfish  interests.  When 
we  survey  the  history  of  the  race  we  see  among  all  nations 
and  in  every  age  the  virtues  of  truth,  integrity,  justice, 
benevolence,  unselfishness,  and  continence,  grievously  violated. 
The  history  of  nations  has  been  largely  the  history  of  crime. 
When  we  leave  the  wide  field  of  history,  when  we  keep  our 
eyes  open  to  what  is  going  on  every  day  around  us,  when  we 
observe  the  conduct  of  men  to  each  other,  when  we  hear  the 
words  they  use  to  and  regarding  each  other,  when  we  mark 
how  they  bear  themselves  in  reference  to  the  regulation  of 
their  passions  and  appetites,  how  much  reason  have  we  to  be 
ashamed  of  our  fellow-men !  When  we  withdraw  our  atten- 
tion from  others,  when  we  summon  up  our  own  past  conduct, 
when  we  mark  the  operations  of  our  own  minds  from  day  to 
day,  when  we  consider  whether  or  not  we  have  loved  our 
neighbours  as  ourselves,  done  to  others  as  we  would  that 
others  should  do  to  us,  and  kept  our  souls  unspotted  from 
the  world,  unstained  from  all  impure  and  injurious  thoughts, 
how  much  reason  have  we  to  be  ashamed  of  ourselves ! 

"  If  human  sin  confronts  tlie  rigid  law 
Of  perfect  truth  and  virtue,  awe 
Seizes  and  saddens  thee  to  see  how  far 
Beyond  thy  reach  perfection  ;  if  we  test 
By  the  ideal  of  the  good,  the  best. 
How  mean  our  efforts  and  our  actions  are  ! 
This  space  between  the  ideal  of  man's  soul 
And  man's  achievement  who  hath  ever  passed  ? 
An  ocean  spreads  between  us  and  that  goal, 
Where  anchor  ne'er  was  cast." 

This  mystery  that  while  mere  physical  existences  should  all 
be  put,  as  it  were,  to  use,  of  human  souls,  of  thought  and 
feehng,  of  knowledge,  virtue,  and  holiness,  or,  in  a  word,  of 
all  that  is  highest  and  most  precious  in  the  universe,  there 
should  be  such  seemingly  lavish,  reckless,  inexplicable  waste, 
may  well  at  times  present  itself  to  us  as  perfectly  appalling. 
One  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  looking  at  it  with  earnest  eye 
and  troubled  heart,  considerably  more  than  two  thousand 
years  ago,  could  not,  prophet   although  he  was,  with  clear. 


268  WORK   WHILE    IT    IS    DAY. 

deep  glances  into  God's  principles  of  moral  government,  help 
crying  out  in  agony,  "  Lord,  hast  Thou  made  all  men  in 
vain  ? "  Of  course,  that  is  a  thought  from  which  we  must 
haste  to  get  free.  There  is  light  and  guidance  to  be  found 
only  in  the  very  opposite  conviction.  Our  life  would  be, 
indeed,  a  bitter  mockery,  if  God  had  made  us  only  for  failure 
and  destruction.  If  God  were  against  us,  who  or  what  could 
be  for  us  ?  But  no !  God  is  for  us.  God  has  made  one  and 
all  of  us  for  eternal  life — for  the  highest  destiny  to  which  our 
natures  point, — for  the  continuous  and  progressive  realisation 
and  enjoyment  of  the  truth,  beauty,  and  goodness,  in  which 
alone  our  souls  can  find  their  real  happiness, — for  that  intimate 
communion  with  Himself  which  is  at  once  eternal  life  and 
perfect  blessedness. 

Only  He  has  given  us  a  terrible  power  to  waste  the  riches 
both  of  our  own  natures  and  of  His  grace.  We  may  exert 
our  faculties  or  allow  them  to  rust  in  idleness ;  we  may  exert 
them  rightly  or  wrongly.  We  may  seek  good  or  evil ;  may 
choose  life  or  death ;  may  keep  the  body  and  its  appetites  in 
subjection  to  reason  and  conscience  or  allow  what  is  lowest  to 
rule  us,  while  neglecting  and  despising  what  is  highest.  Life 
has  been  given  us  for  good  and  noble  ends,  but  we  can  only 
attain  these  ends  if  we  aim  earnestly  and  straightly  at  them, 
and  steadily  and  strenuously  labour  to  reach  them.  Life  brings 
with  it  heavy  responsibilities.  The  work  of  living  well  is  not 
meant  to  be  to  any  one  a  thing  easily  done.  The  works  which 
God  gives  us  to  do,  and  through  the  doing  of  which  we  can 
alone  reach  the  true  goal  of  our  lives,  are  serious  tasks, 
demanding  careful  thought,  constant  watchfulness,  incessant 
self-denial,  and  the  utmost  exertion  of  which  we  are  capable. 

For  we  have  to  work  our  way  out  of  the  darkness  of 
ignorance  in  which  we  are  born  into  the  clear  light  of  thorough 
knowledge  as  to  the  chief  relationships  of  our  existence ;  out 
of  a  region  of  doubt  and  uncertainty  into  that  of  well-founded 
faith  and  settled  conviction.  We  have  to  subdue  the  rude, 
confused,  proud,  rebellious  natures  within  us  into  order,  peace, 
gentleness,  and  obedience  to  moral  and  spiritual  law.  We 
have  to  resist  and  overcome  all  evil  lusts  and  train  ourselves 
into  Christian  habits  of  thought,  feeling,  and  action.     We  have 


WORK    WHILE    IT    IS   DAY.  269 

to  learn  to  love  what  the  carnal  heart  naturally  hates  and  to 
hate  what  it  naturally  loves.  We  have  to  habituate  ourselves 
to  denying  ourselves,  and  to  having  no  will  of  our  own  at 
variance  with  the  holy  will  of  God.  Whatever  that  will  de- 
mands we  are  to  rejoice  to  do.  Wherever  it  leads  we  are  to 
be  ready  to  follow. 

We  are  bound  to  aim  at  completely  realising  the  highest 
ideal  of  life  which  reason  and  conscience  honestly  exercised 
set  before  us,  for  such  an  ideal  is  just  the  very  best  or 
utmost  which  we,  in  our  circumstances  and  with  our  facul- 
ties, could  be  or  do, — the  highest  kind  of  life,  the  noblest 
life,  which  we  believe  attainable  by  us  were  we  fully  to  exert 
all  the  powers  we  possess  and  fully  to  avail  ourselves  of  all 
the  Divine  grace  offered  us.  It  is  not  any  mere  fancy  or 
desire  about  life — it  is  not  merely  what  a  man  would  like 
to  be  or  what  he  can  imagine  himself  to  be.  The  ideal  of 
reason — the  ideal  in  morality  and  religion — is  a  very  different 
thing  from  the  ideal  of  imagination, — the  ideal  in  poetry  and 
romance ;  it  is  what  reveals  itself  to  each  soul  as  the  true 
plan  of  life  for  that  soul,  as  God's  gracious  purpose  and 
counsel  regarding  it,  as  that  which  it  may  and  should,  yea, 
as  that  which  it  must  conform  to,  if  it  would  escape  grievous 
loss  and  severe  penalties.  So  understood,  it  is,  strictly  speak- 
ing, absurd  to  say  a  man  cannot  live  up  to  his  ideal,  for  his 
ideal  is  just  the  height  to  which  he  can  live  up,  and  to  which 
God  commands  him  to  live  up.  What  any  man  absolutely 
cannot  do  is  no  ideal  for  him,  nor  does  God  ask  him  to  do 
it.  It  is  something  with  which  he  has  no  concern.  Therefore, 
I  repeat,  it  is  self-evident  that  a  man  ought  to  live  up  to 
the  ideal  of  his  duty,  of  his  life.  Yet,  alas !  we  all  know, 
how  great  is  the  distance  between  goodness  in  idea  and  in 
fact, — between  the  ideal  and  the  actual.  We  must  all  have 
felt  the  sadness  which  the  poet  describes,  in  the  lines  I  have 
already  quoted,  as  caused  by  the  sight  of  the  ocean  which 
stretches  between  these  two, — which  spreads  between  us  and 
our  goal.  But  why  is  there  this  feeling  of  sadness,  why  is 
there  also  self-reproach  ?  Simply  because  we  are  conscious 
that  a  more  steadfast  and  faithful  heart,  a  more  energetic 
and  manful  will,  might  have  traversed  the  intervening  space, 


270  WORK    WHILE    IT    IS    DAY. 

might  at  least  have  brought  us  nearer  to  our  goal.  We  re- 
proach ourselves  because  our  falling  short  of  our  ideal  proves 
to  us  that  we  have  an  evil  heart,  an  evil  will. 

The  distance  between  the  ideal  and  its  realisation  is  vast, 
but  it  is  by  no  means  the  whole  distance  of  man's  shortcoming. 
The  ideals  of  men  are  always  lower,  less  comprehensive,  less 
pure  than  they  ought  to  be.  We  are  not  only  under  obliga- 
tion to  do  whatever  we  apprehend  to  be  right,  but  we  are 
under  obligation  so  to  study  God's  revelation  of  Himself  to 
us  in  nature  and  Scripture,  so  to  exercise  our  reasons  and 
consciences,  and  to  cherish  such  dispositions,  that  we  shall 
perceive  to  be  right  all  of  right  that  we  can.  If  there  ever 
be  a  perfect  moral  judgment  pronounced  on  the  children  of 
men,  as  we  know  there  will  be,  every  man  will  be  judged 
according  to  his  conscience,  and  yet  no  man  will  be  judged 
merely  according  to  his  conscience.  Unconscientiousness  is 
always  wrong,  but  man's  conscientiousness  is  never  as  broad 
as  the  law  of  his  duty.  Man  must,  if  judged  justly,  be  judged 
not  only  by  his  conscience  but  for  his  conscience,  and  when 
one  reflects  what  conscience  is  in  multitudes  of  men,  yea,  in 
multitudes  of  nations,  it  appears  not  improbable  that  the 
judgment  for  conscience  may  be  as  terrible  as  the  judgment 
by  conscience.  The  unknown  sins  of  men  may  be  even  more 
numerous  and  grievous  than  their  known  sins. 

Therefore  the  law  of  our  lives  can  be  no  other  than  this, 
to  seek  earnestly  to  know  every  work  which  He  who  sent 
us  into  the  world  would  have  us  to  do  and  then  faithfully 
to  do  it, — to  strive  to  apprehend  God's  will  concerning  us  in 
all  its  length  and  breadth  and  then  exactly  to  conform  to  it. 
It  is  a  most  comprehensive  law,  and  its  requirements  will  not 
be  met,  as  they  should  be,  even  by  the  longest  and  best  spent 
lives.  We  may  work  our  hardest,  and  still  when  our  time 
of  labour  draws  to  a  close  we  shall  have  much  reason  to  regret 
not  having  done  more.  The  task  is  great ;  the  day  for  doing 
it  is  short ;  and  the  danger  is  serious  that  the  night  come  upon 
us  when  we  have  lamentably,  shamefully,  little  done. 

The  day  is  short.  When  another  year  has  gone  into  the 
dead  past  beyond  our  recall  for  ever — when  we  look  back  and 
think   how  rapidly,  and,  it  may  be,  how  unprofitably  it  has 


WORK    WHILE    IT   IS   DAY.  271 

glided  away — the  impression  of  this  truth  may  be  vivid  upon 
us,  but  we  seldom  feel  it  as  we  ought.  It  is  not  useless  ad- 
monition which  Scripture  gives  us  when  it  insists  so  often 
on  life's  brevity,  comparing  human  existence  to  the  most 
fleeting  things  in  nature ;  to  the  mist  which  disappears  before 
the  sun,  to  the  cloud  driven  by  the  winds,  to  the  shadows 
that  flit  across  the  landscape,  to  the  smoke  that  ascends  and 
mingles  with  the  atmosphere,  to  the  leaf  of  the  forest  tree, 
and  to  the  flower  of  the  field.  It  cannot  be  compared  to  any 
of  the  more  stable  objects  of  nature.  How  many  generations 
of  men  has  the  earth  successively  borne  on  her  bosom  ;  on 
how  many  generations  have  the  sun  and  the  moon  looked 
down.  There  is  many  a  tree  still  fresh  and  vigorous,  although 
the  hands  that  planted  it  have  for  centuries  been  dust.  Man 
is  far  more  fragile  even  than  many  of  his  own  works.  From 
the  pyramids  of  Egypt  more  than  "  forty  centuries  look  down 
upon  us  "  ;  but  where  are  the  builders  ? 

And  the  day  of  our  life,  I  must  add,  is  as  uncertain  as  it 
is  short.  It  is  a  day  in  which  there  is  often  no  gradual  fading 
away  of  the  light  to  warn  us  that  it  is  drawing  near  to  a  close. 
It  is  often  with  man's  life  as  with  countries  in  other  zones 
than  ours  where  night,  instead  of  climbing  gradually  up  the 
heavens  and  giving  evidence  of  its  approach  by  an  ever  deepen- 
ing twilight,  overspreads  it  at  once  and  envelops  all  living 
creatures  in  sudden  darkness.  In  the  course  we  have  to  run 
there  is  no  point,  however  near  the  one  from  which  we  started, 
where  our  race  may  not  terminate.  In  the  whole  period  of 
life  usually  allotted  to  man  there  is  no  year,  month,  week, 
day,  or  even  instant,  but  it  may  be  the  last  to  each  individual. 
There  is  no  truth  of  which  we  are  more  frequently  or  strikingly 
reminded.  There  has  been  many  an  early  and  sudden  death 
in  the  year  that  is  past.  So  will  it  be  with  the  year  on  which 
we  have  entered.  Some  of  us  here  who  have  welcomed  its 
entry  will  not  witness  its  departure.  It  is  hid  from  us  who 
will  be  called  away,  or  when  the  call  will  be  given,  or  in  what 
manner.  It  may  be  the  feeble ;  they  are  l&ely  to  be  sum- 
moned soon.  It  may  be  the  old ;  they  are  certain  to  be 
summoned  soon.  But  it  may  be  the  strongest  here ;  it  may 
be  the  youngest.     This  only  we  know,  that  when  God  gives 


272  WORK    WHILE    IT   IS    DAY. 

the  command  for  us  to  depart  we  must  obey,  whether  willing 
or  not,  whether  ready  or  not. 

Having  now  seen  how  great  is  the  work  we  have  to  do, 
and  how  short  and  uncertain  is  the  day  in  which  we  have 
to  do  it,  I  would  in  conclusion  merely  state  some  lessons  which 
these  facts,  I  think,  fairly  warrant  us  to  draw. 

Let  this  be  the  first.  We  should  take  in  hand  no  other 
work  than  the  work  which  God  gives  us  to  do — than  the  work 
of  Him  who  hath  sent  us.  That  work  is  obviously  of  itself 
quite  enough  for  us ;  and  if  we  undertake  work  which  God 
does  not  give  us,  such  as  work  which  is  not  intended  for  us 
but  for  some  one  else,  or  evil  work  which  no  one  should  do, 
or  useless  work  which  is  a  mere  waste  of  labour,  then,  of 
course,  we  shall  certainly  not  have  time  to  work  His  works. 
His  works  demand  all  our  time,  all  our  faculties  and  energies — 
our  whole  heart,  strength,  and  soul. 

This  suggests,  next,  that  we  cannot  do  God's  works  unless 
we  have  received  His  Spirit  and  accepted  His  will  as  the 
law  of  our  lives  so  as  to  have  become  fellow-workers  with 
Him.  It  is  only  those  who  surrender  their  hearts  in  faith 
and  love  to  God — only  those  in  whose  souls  God  savingly 
works  by  His  Holy  Spirit — who  can  truly  labour  in  God's 
service.  Otherwise  than  through  regeneration  there  is  no 
possibility  of  becoming  one  of  His  workmen.  His  works  are 
spiritual  works  which  can  only  be  performed  by  spiritual  men. 
If  we  have  not  repented  of  our  sins  and  turned  from  them  to 
God ;  if  we  have  not  believed  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  if 
we  have  not  come  under  the  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit ; 
then,  no  matter  how  diligently  and  strenuously  we  may  toil, 
or  how  useful  our  exertions  may  seem  to  ourselves  or  others, 
the  works  we  do  are  not  the  works  which  God  would  have 
us  to  do,  for  they  are  not  done  in  dependence  on  His  Spirit. 

Again,  since  the  day  on  which  we  can  work  is  short  and 
uncertain,  we  should  not  act  as  if  it  were  long  and  certain ; 
since  the  night  in  which  we  cannot  work  cometh  quickly,  and 
may  come  suddenly,  let  us  not  act  as  if  it  were  far  off 
and  we  were  sure  to  have  abundant  warnings  given  us  of  its 
approach.  It  is  excessive  folly  so  to  act,  and  yet  how  common 
it  is.     Of  heaven  we  do,  indeed,  read,  that  "  there  shall  be  no 


WORK   WHILE   IT   IS   DAY.  273 

night  there,'"  but  what  multitudes  would  seem,  judging  from 
their  conduct,  to  have  read  is  that  there  shall  be  no  night 
here.  Oh,  my  friends,  it  is  not  so  ;  the  night  is  coming  surely 
and  swiftly  to  us  here,  and  it  may  be  upon  us  at  any  moment. 
Act  on  this  most  certain  knowledge.  Do  not  trifle  with  the 
concerns  of  eternity,  with  the  imperishable  interests  of  your 
immortal  souls.  Do  not  add  to  the  bitterness  of  death  the 
bitterness  of  regret  for  work  undone  and  remorse  for  duty 
despised.  There  is  a  sorrow  of  nature  itself  at  the  prospect 
of  death.  It  cannot  but  sadden  us  to  think  that  all  familiar 
forms  and  faces  must  be  seen  by  us  no  more ;  that  the  sun 
will  never  again  rise  for  us ;  that  the  earth  will  still  have 
her  spring  and  summer,  her  autumn  and  winter,  but  for  other 
eyes  than  ours.  There  is  a  deeper  sorrow,  however  —  the 
sorrow  brought  home  to  the  heart  by  the  conviction  of  un- 
faithfulness ;  of  life  wasted  in  a  world  where  there  was  so 
much  to  be  done ;  of  things  unaccomplished  which  a  little 
honesty  and  exertion  would  have  achieved ;  of  faculties  per- 
verted from  noble  to  ignoble  uses.  Since  life  is  so  short  and 
uncertain  it  ought  to  be  at  least  very  real  and  earnest.  Short 
as  it  is,  it  is  long  enough  to  earn  either  unspeakable  happiness 
or  unspeakable  woe,  and  it  will  earn  either  the  one  or  the  other. 

"  Life  is  the  season  God  hath  given 
To  fly  from  hell  and  rise  to  heaven." 

Finally,  let  us  remember  that  not  only  is  night  coming 
rapidly  to  us,  but  that  it  is  also  falling  rapidly  on  others,  so 
as  to  make  it  impossible  to  work  for  them,  even  while  our 
own  day  is  still  lasting.  Think  of  the  heathen ;  think,  say, 
of  the  millions  in  Hindostan,  that  in  a  few  short  years  pass 
away  from  the  light  of  day  to  the  darkness  of  night.  Is 
their  rapid  passage  from  day  to  night  not  a  reason  for  our 
hastening  to  communicate  to  them  the  Gospel  which  has 
brought  life  and  immortality  to  light  ?  And  the  home  heathen 
around  us  are  not  less  to  be  pitied ;  and  they,  too,  are  passing 
away  every  hour  into  the  awful  darkness,  where  human  help 
can  no  longer  avail.  Ay,  even  our  own  dear  friends,  the 
most  loved  members  of  our  homes,  may  be  summoned  away 
from  us,  and  we  shall  see  them  no  more  in  the  land  of  the 

s 


274  WORK   WHILE    IT    IS    DAY. 

living.  Will  it  not  bring  a  bitter  anguish  to  our  hearts  if 
they  pass  away  without  spiritual  good  derived  by  them  from 
intercourse  with  us?  Surely  the  thought  that  at  an  hour 
the  most  unlooked  for — that  at  any  moment — the  night  may 
come  upon  our  loved  ones,  and  hide  them  for  ever  from 
our  sight,  may  well  startle  us  into  an  anxious  and  earnest 
activity. 

Let  us  say,  then,  as  our  Master  said,  "  I  must  work  the 
works  of  Him  that  sent  me  while  it  is  day ;  the  night  cometh, 
when  no  man  can  work."  May  God  give  us  grace  and  strength 
to  do  His  holy  will — to  work  His  blessed  works — during  all 
the  time  He  has  allotted  to  us  on  earth.  And  to  His  name 
be  praise  and  glory,  now  and  ever,  through  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord.     Amen. 


XXV. 

CHRISTIANITY   IN   RELATION   TO   OTHER 
RELIGIONS.i 

MY  subject — Christianity  in  relation  to  other  religions — is 
obviously  far  too  extensive  to  be  satisfactorily  dealt  with 
in  a  single  lecture.  I  am  entitled,  however,  to  assume  that  my 
hearers  do  not  need  to  be  informed  either  what  Christianity  is, 
or  what  the  chief  other  religions  of  the  world  are  or  have  been. 
Your  acquaintance  with  Christianity  began  from  infancy,  and 
has  been  constantly  increasing.  You  know  the  facts  on  which 
it  is  founded, — the  authoritative  sources  of  information  regard- 
ing it, — the  general  course  of  its  eventful  history, — the  general 
character  of  the  doctrinal  systems  to  which  it  has  given  rise, — 
the  ordinary  objections  which  have  been  urged  against  it, — the 
chief  evidences  appealed  to  on  its  behalf,  &c.  As  to  other 
religions,  eleven  of  them,  comprising  the  most  remarkable  and 
most  developed  faiths  of  the  world,  have  been  described  to  you, 
in  careful  and  comprehensive  sketches,  and  in  a  fair  and 
thoughtful  spirit,  by  the  lecturers  who  have  preceded  me.  I 
may  therefore  confine  myself  entirely  to  a  consideration  of  the 
relationship  between  Christianity  and  other  religions,  on  the 
assumption  that  the  things  related  do  not  need  to  be  expounded 
or  explained.     This  is  what  I  mean  to  do. 

Christianity  is  the  only  religion  from  which,  and  in  relation 
to  which,  all  other  religions  may  be  viewed  in  an  impartial  and 
truthful  manner.  It  alone  raises  us  to  a  height  from  which  all 
the  religions  of  the  earth  may  be  seen  as  they  really  are. 
Towering  above  them  all,  it  is  easy  to  perceive  from  it  how  far 

^  A  lecture  delivered  in  St  Giles'  Cathedral,  Edinburgh,  and  in  Glasgow 
Cathedral,  in  1882.  It  is  the  last  of  the  series  of  lectures  published  under  the 
general  title  of  "The  Faiths  of  the  World:  a  Concise  History  of  the  Great 
Religious  Systems  of  the  World  "  (W.  Blackwood  &  Sons,  1882). 


276  CHRISTIANITY   AND    OTHER   RELIGIONS. 

they  fall  short  of  it  in  elevation,  magnitude,  and  beauty,  while 
yet  from  no  other  point  can  their  actual  grandeur  be  so  clearly 
seen,  their  relations  to  one  another  so  distinctly  traced,  and 
the  significance  of  each  of  them  as  a  revelation  of  God  and  of 
men  so  readily  and  fully  understood.  No  other  positive  religion 
thus  affords  us  a  point  of  view  from  which  all  other  religions 
may  be  surveyed,  and  from  which  their  bad  and  their  good 
features,  their  defects  and  their  merits,  are  equally  visible. 
The  point  of  view  of  a  rational  theism — of  what  is  called 
Natural  Religion — is,  doubtless,  next  to  that  of  Christianity, 
the  most  advantageous  position  from  which  to  judge  of  the 
various  "  Faiths  of  the  World,"  but  it  is  certainly  far  below  it, — 
one  from  which  a  large  portion  of  their  contents  must  appear 
without  meaning, — one  from  which  the  estimate  formed  of  them 
can  be  neither  so  comprehensive  nor  so  profound,  neither  so 
just  nor  so  genial.  Christianity  alone  occupies  the  lofty  and 
central  vantage-ground  from  which  every  phase  and  phenomenon 
of  religion  can  be  appreciated  with  all  the  exactness  of  human 
science  and  all  the  fulness  of  human  sympathy.  This  is  a 
remarkable  fact ;  and  as  it  takes  us  straight  to  the  very  heart 
of  our  subject,  let  us  endeavour  to  apprehend  the  meaning 
of  it. 

Now  it  certainly  means  much  more  than  merely  that  Christi- 
anity is  the  centre  of  religious  history.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that 
various  religions,  directly  or  indirectly,  prepared  the  way  for 
Christianity,  and  contributed  more  or  less  to  its  contents.  It  is 
true,  also,  that  other  religions  have  come  into  contact  with  it, 
and  given  place  to  it,  at  various  stages  of  its  course.  But  it 
is  quite  possible  to  represent  the  actual  historical  connection 
between  Christianity  and  other  religions  as  having  been  far 
closer  than  the  facts  warrant  us  to  maintain.  The  religions  of 
mankind  are  not  to  be  conceived  of  as  so  many  stages  or  phases 
of  faith  all  leading  up  to  Christianity  and  passing  on  to  it  the 
truths  which  had  been  successively  but  separately  embodied  in 
each.  This  view  overlooks  one  of  the  most  important  distinc- 
tions between  the  Eastern  and  Western,  the  Asiatic  and  the 
European  worlds.  It  is  only  in  the  latter,  and  there  largely  be- 
cause of  the  influence  of  Christianity  itself,  that  a  common  life 
and  a  common  development  of  culture  through  a  series  of  stages, 


CHRISTIANITY   AND    OTHER   RELIGIONS.  277 

— that  the  rise  and  progress  of  a  truly  human  history,  compre- 
hending many  nations  united  in  the  bonds  of  spiritual  brother- 
hood,— can  be  traced.  The  Eastern  or  Asiatic  world,  in  which 
Christianity  and  so  many  other  religions  appeared,  was  essenti- 
ally a  complex  or  aggregate  of  coexistent  peoples,  with  separate 
histories  but  no  general  history,  each  of  these  peoples  being 
isolated  or  in  little  more  than  external  contact  with  one  another, 
each  acting  on  principles  or  impulses  peculiar  to  itself,  and  each 
proceeding  on  a  different  course  from  its  neighbours.  The 
creed  of  Confucius,  so  wonderfully  correct  as  regards  its  moral 
precepts,  was  already  old  when  taught  by  "the  Master  Kung" 
in  the  sixth  century  B.C.,  and  it  still  rules  the  minds  of  about 
four  hundred  millions  of  human  beings ;  but  Christianity  has 
certainly  not  borrowed  from  it  a  single  thought  or  maxim. 
Brahmanism  and  Buddhism  far  surpass  in  profundity  and 
wealth  of  spiritual  and  speculative  thought  all  other  heathen 
systems ;  but  it  is  only  in  modern  times  that  they  have  come 
into  contact  with  Christianity,  and  only  in  quite  recent  times, 
and  in  connection  with  the  pantheism  and  pessimism  of 
Germany,  that  they  can  be  held  to  have  affected  even  in  the 
slightest  degree  the  estimates  formed  of  Christianity  by  any 
European  thinkers.  Israel  may  have  derived  from  Egypt  some 
of  her  external  rites  and  minor  laws ;  but  it  seems  clear  that 
she  did  not  derive  thence  anything  of  importance  in  the  faith 
which  she  transmitted  to  Christianity.  To  the  ancient  Persian 
religion,  the  Jewish  religion  was  much  more  closely  akin  in 
spirit  than  to  the  Egyptian,  and  Judaism  was  manifestly  quick- 
ened and  strengthened  by  its  contact  with  Mazdeism  during 
the  Babylonian  captivity,  and  may  even,  perhaps,  have  been 
enriched  with  certain  secondary  beliefs,  which  afterwards  re- 
ceived, in  modified  forms,  divine  sanction.  It  only  assimilated, 
however,  what  was  consistent  with  its  own  principles,  and 
returned  from  exile  essentially  unaltered,  although  with  a  larger 
faith  and  fuller  hope  in  the  coming  of  that  kingdom  which  the 
Christ  was  to  establish. 

Christianity,  in  fact,  so  far  from  being  the  result  or  synthesis 
of  all  previous  religions,  or  of  many  previous  religions,  was  in 
immediate  and  intimate  historical  connection  with  only  two 
religious  developments  of  thought — one  Semitic  and  the  other 


278  CHRISTIANITY    AND    OTHER    RELIGIONS. 

Aryan — the  Hebrew  and  the  Hellenistic,  the  Jewish  and  the 
Grecian.  Its  primary  and  fundamental  relationship  was  with 
the  former.  It  assumed  the  religion  of  Israel  as  its  basis.  It 
professed  to  be  the  fulJBlment  of  the  law  and  the  prophets,  to 
have  done  away  with  whatever  was  imperfect  in  them,  to  have 
retained  whatever  they  included  of  permanent  value,  and  to 
be  the  full  corn  in  the  ear  of  every  seed  of  truth  sown,  and 
of  every  blade  of  promise  developed,  in  them.  The  more 
thoroughly  we  investigate  this  claim  the  more  we  shall  be- 
come impressed  with  its  justice.  There  is  not  a  prominent 
doctrine  of  the  Bible  of  which  such  propositions  as  these  may 
not  be  laid  down, — namely,  that  it  was  evolved  from  simple 
facts  or  statements  of  a  rudimentary  or  germinal  kind  ;  that 
the  course  of  its  development  was  gradual,  closely  associated 
with  the  history  of  events,  and  through  a  succession  of  stages, 
in  each  of  which  the  doctrine  was  extended  and  enriched ;  that 
this  course  was  throughout  one  of  progress,  constantly  unfold- 
ing into  greater  clearness  and  comprehensiveness ;  that  the 
evolution  was  imperfect  before  the  New  Testament  era;  and 
that  the  New  Testament  fulfilment  actually  gave  to  the  doctrine 
developed  the  self-consistency  of  completeness,  so  that  it  there- 
after only  required  to  be  apprehended  and  applied.  These 
affirmations  may  almost  be  regarded  as  laws  of  the  important 
science  of  Biblical  theology,  because  they  hold  true  of  all 
Biblical  doctrines.  Judaism  and  Christianity  are  connected  by 
all  the  truths  of  both,  and  by  all  the  threads  or  strands  of  the 
history  of  these  truths.  Judaism  brought  nothing  to  maturity; 
but  the  whole  religion  of  Israel  was  a  prophecy  of  Christianity. 
This  can  only  be  fully  established  and  exhibited  by  the  entire 
science  of  Biblical  theology.  But  the  most  cursory  survey  of 
the  authoritative  records  of  the  Jewish  and  Christian  religions 
is  sufficient  to  show  us  that  the  connection  of  Judaism  and 
Christianity  was  very  peculiar  and  very  wonderful. 

The  latest  portions  of  the  Old  Testament  appeared  genera- 
tions before  the  birth  of  Christ, — its  earliest  portions  belong  to 
an  unknown  antiquity — its  intervening  portions  were  written 
at  intervals,  through  many  centuries,  by  a  multitude  of  authors, 
of  every  condition  in  life  from  prince  to  peasant,  in  every  form 
of  composition,  and  on  a  vast  variety  of  subjects ;  yet  the  col- 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    OTHER   RELIGIONS.  279 

lective  result  is  a  system  of  marvellous  unity,  self-consistency, 
and  comprehensiveness.  It  is  at  the  same  time  a  system  which 
is  not  self-centred  and  self-contained,  but  one  of  which  all  the 
parts  contribute,  each  in  its  place,  to  raise,  sustain,  and  guide 
faith  in  the  coming  of  a  mysterious  and  mighty  Saviour — a 
perfect  prophet,  perfect  priest,  and  perfect  king,  such  as  Christ 
alone  of  all  men  can  be  supposed  to  have  been.  This  broad 
general  fact — this  vast  and  strange  correlation  or  correspond- 
ence— cannot  be  in  the  least  affected  by  any  questions  of  "  the 
higher  criticism  "  as  to  the  authorship,  time  of  origination,  and 
mode  of  composition,  of  the  various  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment :  by  the  questions,  for  example,  which  have  been  raised 
as  to  whether  Moses  wrote  the  Pentateuch ;  whether  its  first 
book  has  been  made  up  of  a  number  of  older  documents ; 
whether  its  legislation  consists  of  various  deposits  or  strata; 
whether  the  book  of  Deuteronomy  is  the  work  of  Jeremiah ; 
whether  there  was  an  earlier  and  a  later  Isaiah ;  whether  the 
book  of  Zechariah  is  the  work  of  several  writers ;  whether 
Daniel  was  composed  by  the  prophet  whose  name  it  bears 
or  by  a  later  author.  Answer  all  these  questions  in  the 
way  which  the  boldest  and  most  rationalistic  criticism  of 
Germany  or  Holland  ventures  to  suggest, — accept  on  every 
properly  critical  question  the  conclusions  of  the  most  advanced 
critical  schools, — and  what  will  follow  ?  Merely  this,  that  those 
who  do  so  must,  in  various  respects,  alter  their  views  as  to 
the  manner  and  method  in  wliich  the  ideal  of  the  Messiah's 
person,  work,  and  kingdom  was,  point  by  point,  line  by  line, 
evolved  and  elaborated.  There  will  not,  however,  be  a  single 
Messianic  word  or  sentence,  not  a  single  Messianic  line  or 
feature,  the  fewer  in  the  Old  Testament  Sciptures.  The  whole 
religion  of  Israel  will  just  as  much  as  before  be  pervaded  by  a 
Messianic  ideal ;  and  that  Messianic  ideal,  however  differently 
it  may  be  supposed  to  have  been  developed,  will  be  absolutely 
the  same  as  before, — an  ideal  which  can  only  be  pretended  to 
have  been  realised  in  Christ,  and  which  may  reasonably  be 
maintained  to  have  been  completely  fulfilled,  and  far  more 
than  fulfilled,  in  Him. 

Such  is  the  connection  between  Judaism  and  Christianity. 
It  is  a  relationship  which  is  not  only  remarkable,  but  unique. 


280  CHRISTIANITY   AND    OTHER   RELIGIONS. 

Comparative  theology  cannot  show  a  second  instance  of  it  in 
the  religious  history  of  humanity.  Brahmanism  was,  indeed,  a 
development  of  the  Vedic  religion ;  but  no  person  has  ever 
regarded  it  as  a  fulfilment  of  the  Vedic  religion.  Buddhism 
was  an  offshoot  of  Brahmanism;  but  instead  of  being  the 
completion  of  Brahmanism,  it  was  an  essentially  antagonistic 
religion.  The  religion  of  Israel  and  the  Christian  religion  are 
the  only  two  faiths  in  the  world  which  have  been  historically 
related  as  prophecy  to  fulfilment,  hope  to  substance. 

The  wisdom  of  the  classical  world — a  wisdom  primarily  and 
chiefly  Greek,  but  considerably  modified  by  the  Roman  mind, 
as  well  as  by  Eastern  thought — must  also  be  admitted  to  have 
had  historically  an  influence  on  the  rise  of  Christianity,  although 
a  feebler  influence  than  that  which  it  exerted  for  many  sub- 
sequent generations  on  the  development  of  Christian  theology. 
The  popular  religions  of  Greece  and  Rome  were  too  poor  and 
fanciful,  indeed,  to  contribute  anything  directly  to  the  treasury 
of  Christian  truth ;  but,  unlike  some  greater  religions,  such  as 
Brahmanism  and  Buddhism,  which  overpowered  and  enslaved 
the  soul,  they  allowed,  and  even  signally  favoured,  a  free, 
simple,  and  natural  growth  of  the  human  mind.  The  con- 
sequence was  the  Greek  and  the  Roman  man, — the  Greek  an 
artist  and  philosopher,  the  Roman  a  conqueror  and  legislator, — 
but  Greek  and  Roman  alike  fully  conscious  of  superiority  to 
the  world,  and  in  some  large  measure  conscious  of  the  divine  in 
humanity.  Hence  the  culture  of  the  classical  world  was  far 
superior  to  that  of  the  Oriental  world,  and  a  magnificent  pre- 
paration for  the  Christian  faith,  and  for  the  world  which  rests 
upon  it.  The  Greco-Roman  intellect  achieved  marvellous  suc- 
cesses in  every  sphere  of  activity,  and  not  least  in  the  highest 
spheres  of  thought.  The  tragedians  of  Greece  had  presenti- 
ments of  truth  so  divine,  expressed  so  clearly  a  sense  of  the 
exceeding  sinfulness  of  sin  and  of  the  need  of  expiation,  and 
breathed  forth  so  pathetically  the  longing  for  reconciliation, 
that  they  have  not  inaptly  been  called  "  the  pagan  prophets  of 
Christianity."  The  Nicomachean  Ethics  of  Aristotle  is  not 
only  a  deeper  and  truer,  but  one  might  almost  say  a  more 
Christian  exposition  of  moral  duties,  than  the  generality  of 
modern  manuals  of  moral  philosophy.    When  Plato  taught  that 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    OTHER   RELIGIONS.  281 

the  Idea  of  the  Good  is  the  source  of  all  existence  and  intelli- 
gence, and  that  the  Absolute  Good  is  God,  he  was  not  far  from 
the  thought  of  Christ,  "  None  is  good  save  one,  that  is  God," 
nor  from  the  thought  of  St  John,  "  God  is  love ;"  and  although 
"Platonic  love"  was  but  joy  in  beauty,  order,  excellence,  still 
the  inculcation  even  of  that  was  a  notable  approximation  to  the 
doctrine,  "  Love  is  of  God,  and  every  one  that  dwelleth  in  love 
is  born  of  God  and  knoweth  God."  The  thinkers  of  Greece,  in 
discovering  and  developing  all  the  arguments  which  reason  can 
yet  urge  for  the  existence  of  God,  are  entitled  to  the  credit  of 
having  first  explicitly  proved  rational  the  truths  assumed  in  the 
Scriptures  as  the  very  foundations  both  of  Judaism  and  of 
Christianity.  And  in  labouring  to  show  that  the  whole  heavens 
and  earth  depend  on  the  Eternal  Reason,  they  reached  conclu- 
sions as  to  the  self-revelation  of  that  reason,  which  the  Jewish 
thinkers  of  Alexandria  could  easily  combine  with  the  intima- 
tions of  the  Old  Testament  as  to  the  "Word  of  the  Lord" 
and  the  "  Wisdom  of  God,"  and  which  were  fitted  to  lead  up 
alike  to  what  St  Paul  taught  of  Christ  as  "the  image  of  the 
invisible  God,  the  first-born  of  every  creature,  by  whom  all 
things  were  created,  and  by  whom  all  things  consist,"  and  to 
what  St  John  taught  of  Him  as  "  the  Word  made  flesh,  who 
tabernacled  among  men,  so  that  they  beheld  in  Him  the  glory 
as  of  the  only  begotten  of  the  Father." 

This  Greco-Roman  wisdom  spread  into  Palestine  and  the 
adjacent  countries, — spread  far  as  Roman  conquest  extended 
and  Greek  speech  penetrated, — so  that  the  atmosphere  of 
thought  and  feeling  which  Christ  and  the  Apostles  breathed 
was  much  less  purely  Jewish,  much  less  purely  native,  than 
that  in  which  Moses,  and  the  psalmists,  and  the  prophets  of 
ancient  Israel  lived.  The  spiritual  change  is  reflected  in  the 
general  difference  of  tone  and  character  between  the  Old  and 
the  New  Testament  Scriptures.  It  is  not,  however,  traceable 
in  the  form  of  definite  thoughts,  or  sentiments,  or  expressions 
directly  derived  by  the  New  Testament  writers  from  classical 
authors.  There  was  no  borrowing  of  this  kind.  It  was  not 
thus  that  classical  thought  acted  on  Christianity  in  its  con- 
ception. Christ  and  the  Apostles  are  certainly  not  to  be 
regarded  as  the  students  or  disciples  of  Greek  philosophers. 


282  CHRISTIANITY    AND    OTHER   RELIGIONS. 

They  were  providentially  so  circumstanced  that  no  one  can 
reasonably  suppose  their  teaching  to  have  been  based  on 
Greek  speculation,  or  reasonably  deny  that,  while  proceeding 
from  a  Jewish  past,  they  displayed  in  setting  forth  a  new 
religion  the  most  marked  originality.  Greek  wisdom  in- 
fluenced them  only  in  the  same  general  way  in  which  German 
idealism  or  French  positivism  may  affect  the  thoughts  of  an 
intelligent  Scottish  peasant,  although  he  has  never  read  a  line, 
or  even  heard  the  names,  of  Hegel  or  Comte.  But  its  in- 
fluence is  not  to  be  inferred  to  have  been  unreal  or  incon- 
siderable, because  it  was  vague  and  general.  It  exerted  an 
indubitable  historical  influence,  however  difiicult  it  may  be 
precisely  to  determine  what  its  particular  effects  were.  At 
the  same  time,  most  superficial  and  erroneous  is  the  notion 
that  Christianity  was  only  a  product  or  compound  of  Jewish 
and  Grecian  forces  and  elements.  Christianity  is  the  religion 
which  has  the  deepest  and  broadest  historical  foundation,  and 
yet  it  is  also  the  most  original  of  religions,  for  it  is  essentially 
the  manifestation  and  work  of  the  most  original  of  person- 
alities. Christianity  centres  in  Christ,  and  Christ's  character 
had  no  pattern  in  actual  history  either  heathen  or  Jewish, 
nor  His  mission  any  parallel  in  its  grandeur  and  comprehen- 
siveness. It  is  vain  to  attempt  to  explain  them  from  any 
resources  or  by  any  peculiarities  of  the  age  in  which  He 
appeared. 

Let  us  now  come  back,  however,  to  the  point  from  which 
we  started — namely,  the  fact  that  Christianity  has  relations 
to  all  religions,  and  often  most  intimate  and  special  relations 
to  religions  with  which  it  has  had  little  or  no  historical  con- 
nection. How  happens  it  that  the  religions  of  India  and  of 
China,  of  the  Teuton  and  Scandinavian  of  Northern  Europe, 
and  of  the  Toltec  and  Aztec  of  Central  America,  can  just  as 
well  be  judged  of  from  a  Christian  standpoint  and  in  relation 
to  the  Christian  faith,  as  the  religions  of  Greece  and  of  Rome  ? 
It  can  only  be  because  Christianity  is  in  a  higher  and  broader 
than  merely  historical  manner  the  centre  of  the  system  of  the 
world's  religions.  All  judgments  and  comparisons  of  the  kind 
referred  to  would  otherwise  be  arbitrary  and  unjust.     Christi- 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    OTHER   RELIGIONS.  283 

anity  is,  however,  the  ideal  or  spiritual  centre  of  all  religions 
in  two  ways,  which  only  need  to  be  indicated  in  order  to 
explain  why  all  religions  look  towards  it,  and  can  be  most 
clearly  seen  and  most  fully  comprehended  in  the  light  of  it. 

First,  then,  Christianity  is  the  Absolute  Religion,  in  the 
sense  of  the  perfect  realisation  of  the  idea  which  underlies 
and  gives  significance  to  all  religions.  Religion  is  the  com- 
munion between  a  worshipping  subject  and  a  worshipped 
object, — the  communion  of  man  with  what  he  believes  to  be 
a  god.  It  is  a  relationship  which  supposes  both  distinction 
and  unity.  Were  there  no  distinction  between  the  subject 
and  the  object,  there  could  be  no  religion,  whether  the  self- 
identical  unity  were  named  God  or  named  man.  Neither  a 
relation  of  God  to  Himself  nor  of  man  to  himself  can  be 
regarded  as  religion.  On  the  other  hand,  were  there  only 
distinction  between  God  and  man,  were  they  absolutely  sepa- 
rate from  and  indifferent  to  each  other,  religion  must  be  in 
this  case  also  impossible.  Religion  supposes  two  factors, 
which  are  different  yet  related,  so  far  distinct  and  so  far  akin, 
a  Divine  Being  and  a  human  being,  the  worshipped  and  the 
worshipper.  And  as  a  state  of  mind  and  life,  it  is  the  man's, 
the  worshipper's,  sense  of  relationship  to,  and  dependence  on, 
the  Being  whom  he  believes  and  feels  himself  bound  to  adore, 
to  propitiate,  and  to  serve.  This  is  the  generic  notion  of 
religion, — the  idea  of  religion  which  applies  to  all  religions, 
however  rude  and  degrading,  or  however  spiritual  and  ennob- 
ling. It  applies  to  all  heathen  religions,  for  they  all,  without 
exception,  contain  some  sort  of  honest  belief  in  a  power  or 
powers  regarded  with  awe  and  reverence.  It  applies  to  natural 
religion,  which  is  the  communion  of  man  with  God  so  far  as 
God  is  discovered  by  man  through  the  natural  exercise  of  his 
faculties  and  from  natural  objects  and  events.  It  applies  to 
revealed  religion,  which  is  the  communion  of  man  with  God, 
as  made  known  to  him,  immediately  or  mediately,  through 
special  supernatural  manifestation.  The  rank  and  worth  of 
a  religion  depend  on  the  measure  in  which  it  approximates 
to  the  complete  realisation  of  this  idea.  Christianity  alone 
completely  realises  it.  It  alone  shows  us  the  whole  grandeur 
and  wealth  of  the  idea.     But  for  it  our  consciousness   and 


284  CHRISTIANITY   AND    OTHER   RELIGIONS. 

thoughts  of  religion  must  have  necessarily  been  comparatively 
poor  and  meagre,  one-sided  and  perverted.  In  and  through  it 
alone  we  see  what  religion  really  means ;  what,  in  order  to 
answer  fully  to  its  own  nature,  it  implies  as  to  God  and  man, 
and  the  relationship  between  God  and  man.  Because  it  thus 
alone  presents  religion  to  us  at  once  as  a  reality  and  in  its 
ideal  perfection, — without  error  or  one-sidedness,  with  pure 
and  comprehensive  truthfulness, — it  is  the  absolute  religion, 
the  religion  in  the  light  of  which  and  in  relation  to  which 
all  other  religions  must  be  viewed,  if  they  are  to  be  rightly 
and  thoroughly  understood. 

Christianity,  alone  of  religions,  gives  a  clear,  self-consis- 
tent, adequate  view  of  God.  It  presents  Him  as  the  one  God, 
eternal,  infinite,  omnipotent,  omniscient ;  as  perfect  in  wisdom, 
in  righteousness,  in  holiness ;  and  yet  as  merciful,  gracious, 
full  of  goodness  and  love  ;  a  true  Father  in  His  feelings  and 
actings  towards  men ;  the  God  and  Father  of  Jesus  Christ, 
in  whose  character  and  sacrifice  His  moral  glory  has  found 
the  highest  revelation  of  its  purity  and  beauty,  its  attractive- 
ness and  tenderness.  It,  alone  of  religions,  addresses  itself  to 
man  as  he  really  is,  and  in  the  whole  extent  of  his  being, 
overlooking  no  weakness,  cloaking  no  sin,  making  no  false 
concessions,  yet  denying  no  legitimate  supports,  and  appealing 
in  due  order  and  degree  to  faith,  reason,  affection,  and  will. 
It,  alone  of  religions,  discloses  and  promises  to  man  a  com- 
plete communion  with  God.  It  shows  the  perfect  union  of 
the  divine  and  human  in  the  person  and  life  of  its  founder. 
It  offers,  on  the  basis  and  surety  of  a  divinely  accomplished 
and  divinely  accepted  atonement,  full  reconciliation  with  God 
to  every  one  who  will  repent  and  turn  from  his  sins.  It 
demands  that  the  whole  soul  and  strength  of  man  be  devoted 
to  God ;  and  to  render  possible  compliance  with  the  demand, 
it  enriches  him  with  such  internal  gifts  as  the  abiding  presence 
of  Christ  within  and  the  regenerating  and  sanctifying  opera- 
tions of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  with  such  external  aids  as  the 
Scriptures,  the  Church,  and  sacraments.  Christian  communion 
with  God  should  be  inclusive  of  the  whole  receptive  life  of 
man,  filling  him  with  the  peace,  and  love,  and  joy  of  God ; 
yet  equally  inclusive  of  his  whole  active  life,  requiring  con- 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    OTHER   RELIGIONS.  285 

formity  to  every  precept  of  the  divine  will  and  the  exercise 
of  every  energy  in  the  advancement  of  the  divine  kingdom. 

The  idea  of  religion  which  Christianity  thus  completely 
realises  is  present  in  every  religion,  and  the  more  any  religion 
embodies  and  expresses  it,  the  higher  and  the  better  is  that 
religion.  No  religion,  however,  but  the  Christian,  nearly 
approaches  to  the  complete  embodiment  and  expression  of 
it.  Most  religions  are  sadly  defective  as  regards  every  ele- 
ment of  the  idea.  All  of  them,  with  the  one  exception,  err 
grievously  as  to  some  constituent  or  aspect  of  it.  Those  of 
them  which  excel  most  in  one  respect  often  fail  worst  in 
others.  Yet  none  of  them  are  wholly  false  or  "  without  some 
soul  of  goodness,"  and  in  so  far  as  any  religion  is  true  and 
good,  it  is  akin  to  the  religion  in  which  the  fulness  of  truth 
and  goodness  implied  in  the  idea  of  religion  has  been  realised, 
the  absolute  religion,  founded  by  Him  who,  in  the  spirit  not 
of  narrow  exclusiveness  but  of  broadest  inclusiveness,  claimed 
to  be  "the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life." 

A  brief  glance  over  the  world  of  religions  will  illustrate 
what  has  been  asserted.  At  the  bottom  of  the  scale  a  crowd 
of  religions  are  to  be  observed,  which  have  not  been  dealt 
with  in  this  course  of  lectures,  but  which  have  had  much 
attention  drawn  to  them  by  the  works  of  Lubbock,  Spencer, 
Tylor,  Waitz,  and  others.  They  are  the  religions  of  the  type 
known  as  fetishistic  or  animistic.  In  these  nothing  is  too 
mean  to  be  worshipped,  nothing  more  grotesque  than  the 
worship,  and  no  end  so  capricious  or  selfish  but  that  it  may 
be  sought  to  be  attained  through  worship.  It  is  always  easy 
to  see  how  wretchedly  the  divine  is  conceived  of  in  them ; 
how  little  conscious  of  his  own  true  wants  and  of  the  worth  of 
human  nature  is  the  poor  worshipper ;  and  how  dark  and  gross, 
how  uncomforting  and  unelevating,  are  his  attempts  to  gain 
the  aid  or  avert  the  anger  of  the  agents  on  whom  he  feels 
himself  dependent.  It  is  often  difficult  to  bring  one's  self 
to  acknowledge  that  there  is  any  religion  at  all  in  these  so- 
called  religions.  Yet  religion  there  is,  and  not  unfrequently 
much  religion,  unless  we  have  greatly  erred  as  to  the  notion 
of  religion.  There  is  a  sense  of  nature  being  pervaded  and 
of  life  being  influenced  by  mysterious  powers  ;  a  conviction 


286  CHRISTIANITY    AND    OTHER   RELIGIONS. 

that  iu  all  things  and  events  there  is  more  than  can  be  seen 
and  touched ;  a  practical  faith  in  mind  above  and  around  man 
answering  to  the  mind  within  him.  Now,  as  he  to  whom 
"  a  primrose  by  the  river's  brim  a  yellow  primrose  is  and 
nothing  more"  can  have  no  poetry  in  his  nature,  so  he  who 
believes  that  in  wood  and  stone  there  is  nothing  more  than 
what  his  eyes  perceive  and  his  hands  grasp,  or  nothing  more 
even  than  all  that  the  chemist  and  mineralogist  or  botanist 
can  tell  him  about  them,  has  little  piety  in  his  soul ;  and  if, 
as  Christianity  teaches,  "  in  God  we  live,  and  move,  and  have 
our  being,"  and  "by  Christ  all  things  consist,"  the  animist 
possesses  truth  which  such  a  man  ignores,  and  stands,  in 
consequence,  in  closer  relationship  than  he  to  the  Christian 
faith.  The  vague,  feeble,  wayward  gropings  of  the  fetishist 
after  communion  with  divine  powers  are  not  to  be  denied  to 
be  religious,  nor  denied  to  have  affinity  with  what  is  deepest 
in  religion.  Many  professed  Christians,  perhaps,  if  they  had 
eyes  to  see  and  hearts  to  understand,  might  learn  not  a  little 
from  the  fetishist.  And  certain  it  is  that  Christianity,  although 
the  highest  of  all  religions,  or  rather  just  because  the  higheBt 
of  all  religions,  can  convince  and  convert  the  devotees  of  the 
very  lowest  religions,  and  thus  speak  peace  and  yield  satisfac- 
tion even  to  the  heart  of  the  fetishist.  As  in  art  and  litera- 
ture the  utmost  perfection  may  be  combined  with  the  utmost 
simplicity,  so  is  it  in  religion.  The  higher  heathen  religions, 
like  the  Egyptian  religion,  Brahmanism,  and  Buddhism,  are 
essentially  abstruse,  and  only  capable  of  being  intelligently 
apprehended  by  speculative  intellects.  But  the  absolute  re- 
ligion is  so  simple,  clear,  and  plain,  so  adapted  to  the  mind 
and  heart  of  universal  humanity,  that  the  most  degraded 
peoples  can  discern  the  force  of  its  claims,  and  recognise  in 
it  the  true  response  to  what  they  were  blindly  feeling  after 
in  their  fetishistic  state. 

Passing  by,  because  of  the  limited  time  at  our  disposal,  inter- 
mediate phases  of  polytheism,  religions  of  a  fully  developed 
anthropomorphic  type  like  those  of  Greece,  Kome,  and  Scan- 
dinavia, present  themselves.  In  these  religions  the  gods  have 
become  completely  human  forms — magnified  men  and  women. 
Hence  the  communion  of  the  worshipper  with  the  worshipped 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    OTHER    RELIGIONS.  287 

is  here,  on  the  whole,  cordial  and  familiar.  It  is  a  communion, 
however,  which  is  weakened  and  divided  because  there  are  many 
competitors  for  homage ;  one  in  which  reason  has  little  share, 
and  which  the  growth  of  reason  tends  to  destroy ;  one  which 
largely  rests  also  on  the  sense  of  sin  being  imperfectly  developed, 
so  that  the  growth  of  conscience  is  as  fatal  to  it  as  the  growth  of 
thought ;  one  which  cannot  satisfy  the  more  spiritual  affections 
of  the  soul,  and  is  very  far  from  including  a  true  ideal  or  law 
for  practical  life.  Eeligions  of  this  kind  can  rule  the  mind 
only  in  its  youthful  immaturity.  But  through  eliciting  and 
stimulating  the  free  and  energetic  exercise  of  men's  faculties 
they  may  do  more  for  the  progress  of  humanity  than  religions 
of  a  far  more  profound  and  serious  character.  The  culture  of 
Greece  is  the  best  vindication  of  the  scheme  of  providence 
which  included  the  religion  of  Greece.  Without  the  gods  of 
Greece  the  works  of  Phidias  and  Apelles,  of  -i^^schylus  and 
Sophocles,  would  either  not  have  been,  or  been  very  inferior  to 
what  they  were.  The  Roman  gods  helped  mightily  to  make 
those  Roman  men  who  conquered  the  world,  and  who  still 
"from  their  urns"  so -largely  rule  the  world  through  Roman 
law.  The  followers  of  Thor  and  Odin  were  stern  and  ruthless, 
but  they  were  also  free,  fearless,  enterprising — jSt  instruments 
for  the  destruction  of  the  Roman  world  when  it  deserved  to 
fall,  and  strong  materials  with  which  to  build  up  the  edifice  of 
another  and  weightier  world.  Christianity  has  made  Christen- 
dom, but  it  has  made  it  because  it  could,  without  inconsistency, 
appropriate  and  utilise  the  culture  of  the  Greek,  the  political 
intelligence  of  the  Roman,  the  Saxon's  love  of  liberty,  the 
Norseman's  enterprise  and  valour.  It  has  dethroned  alike  the 
gods  of  Olympus  and  of  Valhalla,  but  it  has  rejected  nothing  of 
good  which  grew  up  under  their  sway.  Every  germ  of  truth 
in  those  ancient  pagan  faiths  may  find  a  place,  and  every  energy 
which  gave  worth  to  the  lives  of  ancient  pagan  men  may  find 
scope,  within  the  sphere  of  Christian  thought  or  work. 

In  the  Mazdean  or  Zoroastrian  religion  we  have  the  best 
example  of  a  dualistic  faith.  It  conceived  of  morality  as  es- 
sentially a  struggle  in  favour  of  Ormuzd,  and  consequently 
in  favour  of  light,  purity,  and  truth ;  and  against  Ahriman, 
and  consequently  against  darkness,  impurity,  and  falsehood. 


288  CHRISTIANITY    AND    OTHER   RELIGIONS. 

It  represented  the  struggle  as  hopeful,  because  not  a  struggle 
against  existence  itself,  but  simply  against  evil  existence, 
and  because  Ahriraan  and  his  hosts  were  doomed  to  defeat. 
It  afforded  scope  for  a  vigorous  and  manly  virtue,  man  being 
supposed  to  have  been  created  by  the  good  God,  and  to 
have  been  placed,  endowed  with  complete  personal  freedom,  in 
the  midst  of  the  moral  antagonism  of  the  world,  in  order  to 
combat  the  evil  god  and  all  his  works.  Its  good  points  were  its 
recognition  of  the  reverence  due  to  the  holy  will  of  the  good 
God,  its  belief  in  a  kingdom  of  God,  and  its  hope  in  the 
triumph  of  good  over  evil.  And  Christianity  has  all  these 
merits.  Where  Zoroastrianism  manifestly  and  grievously 
erred  was  in  confounding  moral  and  physical  good,  moral  and 
physical  evil,  in  unduly  extending  the  boundaries  of  evil,  and 
in  exaggerating  the  power  of  the  Evil  One.  Christianity  is  free 
from  all  these  faults.  Zoroastrianism  was,  moreover,  a  meagre, 
rudimentary,  undeveloped  system  ;  whereas  in  Christianity  there 
is  the  fulness  of  truth  and  of  grace. 

The  best  example  of  a  pantheistic  religion  is  Brahmanism. 
It  is  as  rich  in  thought  as  Zoroastrianism  is  poor.  It  has 
sprung  from  the  most  profound  and  earnest  meditations  on  the 
nature  of  existence,  on  the  absolute  spirit,  on  the  relation  of  the 
infinite  and  the  finite,  on  reality  and  appearance,  on  life  and 
death,  on  suffering  and  retribution.  It  has  given  rise  to  a  vast 
and  peculiar  civilisation,  to  various  systems  of  theology  and 
philosophy,  and  to  an  abundant  and  remarkable  literature.  It 
is  only  of  late  that  Christian  scholars  have  applied  themselves 
to  a  close  study  of  its  principles  and  doctrines.  It  may  well 
be  that  they  will  find  it  to  have  much  to  teach  them  and  more 
to  suggest  to  them.  It  may  well  be  that  Hindu  thoughts  will 
yet  modify  considerably  European  views  of  religion,  and  even 
modify  them  for  the  better.  But  it  is  clear  that  however  much 
truth  there  may  be  in  Brahmanism,  it  is  truth  which  must  be 
consonant  with  the  spirit  of  Christianity,  and  which  that  spirit 
can  assimilate ;  whereas  Brahmanism  has  so  conspicuously 
failed  to  realise  the  idea  of  religion — or,  in  other  words,  to  meet 
the  requirements  of  a  religion — that  it  is  mere  folly  to  think  of 
it  as  a  rival  to  Christianity.  It  conceives  of  God  as  so  ab- 
solutely the  One  Being,  that  all  finite  objects,  finite  minds,  and 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    OTHER   RELIGIONS.  289 

finite  interests  are  deemed  illusions,  and  that  not  even  moral 
distinctions  are  supposed  to  exist  in  Him  or  before  Him.  It 
denies  to  Him  the  intelligence,  the  freedom,  the  holiness,  the 
love  which  can  only  be  found  in  a  person ;  indeed  it  denies  to 
Him  all  definite  attributes,  and  so  leaves  to  be  worshipped 
merely  an  empty  abstraction,  an  infinite  blank.  It  regards  the 
worshipper's  own  consciousness  of  freedom  and  sense  of  respon- 
sibility as  deceptive.  It  represents  the  loss  of  finite  being,  the 
absorption  of  the  finite  in  the  infinite,  as  the  perfection  and 
ultimate  goal  of  communion  with  God.  Such  being  the  general 
idea  of  religion  on  which  Brahmanism  proceeds,  it  has  neces- 
sarily fallen  into  the  wildest  speculative  errors  and  led  to  the 
most  deplorable  practical  consequences. 

There  are  three  religions  to  which  it  may  suffice  merely  to 
refer,  as  showing  that  great  success  in  certain  respects  does 
not  preclude  great  failure  in  others.  Buddhism,  by  its  inculca- 
tion of  charity,  self-sacrifice,  justice,  purity,  and  all  the  passive 
and  gentler  virtues,  and  by  the  moral  ideal  which  it  presents  as 
having  been  exemplified  in  the  character  and  life  of  Buddha, 
far  surpasses,  on  one  most  important  side  of  the  religious  idea, 
all  other  heathen  religions,  and  might  be  maintained  to  have 
left  in  that  particular  direction  little  or  nothing  in  Christianity 
unanticipated.  Yet  it  is  Buddhism  which  represents  God  as 
a  negation,  all  existence  as  irrational  and  vain,  and  the  chief 
good  as  eternal  nothingness. 

In  a  somewhat  different  manner,  Confucianism,  which  reflects 
and  impresses  so  truthfully  the  mind  of  China,  was  also  strong 
on  its  practical  side.  This  ancient,  singular,  isolated  nation 
has  from  the  earliest  time  shown  a  most  remarkable  genius 
for  accurate  moral  discernment.  No  nation  in  the  world  has 
displayed  the  same  ability  to  perceive  what  was  individually 
and  socially,  morally  and  politically  right.  Its  plain,  precise, 
common-sense  mind  has  shown  itself  to  singular  advantage  in 
the  ethical  sphere.  There  is  probably  not  a  single  moral  pre- 
cept in  the  Christian  Scriptures  which  is  not  substantially  also 
in  the  Chinese  classics.  Almost  every  important  principle  in 
Bishop  Butler's  ethical  teachings  had  been  explicitly  set  forth 
by  Mencius  in  the  fourth  century  B.C.  The  Cliinese  thinker  of 
that  date  had  anticipated  the  entire  moral  theory  of  man's 

T 


290  CHRISTIANITY   AND    OTHER   RELIGIONS. 

constitution  expounded  so  long  afterwards  by  the  most  famous 
of  English  moral  philosophers.  But  while  China  has  in  Con- 
fucianism a  correct  and  detailed  moral  code,  she  has  nothing 
to  supply  her  great  want, — the  want  of  a  worthy  view  of  God, 
On  the  spiritual  side  this  religion  is  defective  in  the  extreme. 
Its  god  is  almost  a  void,  without  depth  or  content,  without 
will  or  affection.  And  hence,  notwithstanding  its  admirable 
common-sense  and  equally  admirable  moral  sense,  China  remains 
almost  dead  and  immobile,  with  its  heart  and  hopes  buried  in 
the  past,  not  only  not  progressing,  but  not  even  dreaming  of 
progress ;  a  vast  monument  of  the  insufficiency  of  earth  without 
heaven,  of  moral  precepts  without  spiritual  faith,  of  man 
without  God ;  an  instructive  and  impressive  warning  to  Europe 
as  to  what  any  gospel  of  positivism  may  be  expected  to  do 
for  her. 

As  the  Chinaman  turns  to  the  past,  the  ancient  Egyptian 
turned  with  all  his  love  and  interest  to  the  future.  The 
present  life  he  comparatively  little  esteemed — not,  indeed, 
that  he  regarded  it,  like  the  Hindu,  as  illusory  and  vain,  but 
because  he  contrasted  it  with  a  higher,  and  better,  and  fuller 
life,  only  to  be  realised  in  the  next  world.  The  Egyptians  had 
a  strong  and  steady  sense  of  a  divine  and  righteous  government 
of  the  world,  and  a  wonderfully  firm  and  operative  conviction 
of  a  future  life  dependent  in  character  on  personal  conduct  in 
the  present.  To  have  expressed  this  sense,  to  have  maintained 
this  faith,  was  the  glory  of  the  old  Egyptian  religion.  But 
what  a  dark  and  dishonouring  blot  on  the  system  which  had 
such  a  merit  was  its  debasing  animal-worship !  And  what 
injustice  was  done  to  all  the  truths  it  contained  by  that  abstruse 
and  excessive  symbolism  which  makes  it  of  all  religions  the 
most  enigmatic  and  impenetrable  ! 

It  is  unnecessary  to  compare  Christianity  with  the  only  two 
religions  which  agree  with  it  in  being  manifestly  and  con- 
sistently monotheistic,  Judaism  and  Mahommedanism ;  for  the 
former  was  essentially  and  in  all  respects  imperfect  in  itself 
and  a  preparation  for  Christianity,  while  the  latter  must  be 
pronounced  to  have,  on  the  whole,  alike  as  regards  its  views 
of  God  and  of  man,  of  worship  and  of  conduct,  very  seriously 
degenerated  or  retrograded  even  from  Judaism, 


CHRISTIANITY   AND    OTHER   RELIGIONS.  291 

Enough  has  now  been  said,  perhaps,  to  indicate  what  is 
meant  when  we  maintain  that  Christianity  is  the  Absohite 
Religion,  or  has  alone  completely  and  harmoniously  realised 
the  idea  of  religion,  present,  indeed,  in  all  other  religions,  yet 
always  merely  in  some  inadequate,  undeveloped,  deformed,  or 
debased  shape.  All  heathen  religions  contain  some  erroneous 
and  evil  principles  among  their  essential  tenets,  and  in  so  far 
as  such  is  the  case  Christianity  must  be  hostile  to  them.  All 
heathen  religions  are  defective  and  disproportionate,  and  there- 
fore ought  to  give  way  before  Christianity,  which  is  complete 
and  harmonious.  All  heathen  religions  comprise  elements  of 
truth,  features  of  goodness,  disclosures  of  God,  means  of  spiritual 
life ;  and  in  so  far  they  lead  up  to  the  absolute  religion,  the 
full-orbed  faith,  in  which  all  rays  of  light  are  concentrated,  and 
in  which  there  is  no  darkness  at  all.  Christianity  as  thus  the 
absolute  religion  is  a  religion  sui  generis,  a  religion  most  un- 
like all  other  religions,  and  at  the  same  time  related  and  akin 
to  all  other  religions,  the  religion  around  which  all  other  reli- 
gions in  their  better  aspects  group  themselves  to  do  it  homage, 
"  saying  with  a  great  voice,  like  the  angels  round  about  the 
throne  and  the  living  creatures  and  the  elders,  Worthy  is  the 
Lamb  that  hath  been  slain  to  receive  the  power,  and  riches,  and 
wisdom,  and  might,  and  honour,  and  glory,  and  blessing." 

Secondly,  the  peculiar  position  of  Christianity  among  other 
religions  arises  from  its  being  the  only  religion  which  rests  on 
a  complete  revelation.  This  is  implied  in  its  being  the  absolute 
religion.  Absolute  religion  cannot  rest  on  a  partial  or  frag- 
mentary revelation.  Wherever  there  is  religion  there  is  revela- 
tion. Man  does  not  know  God  by  immediate  vision,  nor  does 
God  act  on  man  by  His  absolute  essence.  God  manifests 
Himself  to  the  faculties  of  man  through  certain  media.  These 
constitute  revelation,  in  that  broad  sense  of  the  term  in  which 
it  is  the  condition  and  con-elative  of  religion.  Thus  under- 
stood, revelation  is  either  general  or  special,  for  both  general 
and  special  revelation  come  under  the  one  idea  of  divine  self- 
manifestation.  Both  imply  that  there  is  a  God  who  makes 
known  to  His  rational  creatures  His  presence,  character,  and 
will.     God  Himself  is  the  agent  and  object  of  both ;  He  makes 


292  CHRISTIANITY    AND    OTHER    RELIGIONS. 

known  what  would  otherwise  be  unknown,  and  what  He  makes 
known  is  Himself. 

General  revelation  comprises  all  objects  which  present  them- 
selves to  the  eyes,  ears,  and  other  senses ;  all  minds,  and  those 
faculties  of  volition,  intelligence,  moral  discernment,  and  affec- 
tion, which  make  them  images  of  God  and  enable  them  to  reflect 
the  features  of  God  wherever  displayed ;  and  all  the  events  of 
history,  which  is  the  manifestation  of  God  in  time,  as  the  material 
creation  is  His  manifestation  in  space.  This  vast  book  of  general 
revelation  lies  open  within  the  reach  and  in  the  presence  of  men 
in  all  lands  and  ages.  It  is  an  inexhaustible  treasury  of  truth, 
and  individuals  and  generations  may  always  find  in  it  what  is  new. 
Great  stores  of  spiritual  truth  have  already  been  drawn  from 
it.  Probably  it  is  the  source  whence  all  the  truth  in  heathen 
religions  has  gradually  been  derived.  Evidence  is  wanting  that 
these  religions  have  been  enriched  through  special  revelation, 
although  special  spiritual  influence  may  have  opened  the  eyes 
of  many  wise  and  good  men  among  the  heathen  to  behold  the 
wonders  of  God's  law  in  creation  and  providence.  The  book, 
however,  in  which  general  revelation  has  been  recorded  is  a 
difficult  book  to  decipher  and  interpret.  Material  objects, 
mental  experiences,  and  historical  events  have  religious  mean- 
ings, but  not  meanings  which  can  be  apprehended  with  much 
clearness  or  correctness  by  savage  or  barbarous  men,  by  un- 
educated or  unthoughtful  men,  or  by  any  man  whose  heart  is 
darkened  and  perverted  by  evil  passions,  and  whose  mind  is 
not  already  largely  possessed  and  enlightened  by  spiritual 
truth.  The  easiest  volume  of  this  book  to  read  is  that  of 
physical  nature ;  it  is  the  volume  from  which  the  lower  reli- 
gions, the  nature-worships,  have  been  almost  entirely  drawn ; 
and  yet,  although  a  volume  undoubtedly  full  of  wisdom  and 
instruction,  its  characters  are  practically  in  an  unknown  tongue 
to  the  great  majority  of  men.  There  may  be  "sermons  in 
stones,  and  books  in  running  brooks,"  yet  to  all  but  one  in 
a  thousand  a  stone  is  just  a  stone,  and  no  sermon, — a  running 
brook  simply  a  running  brook,  and  no  book. 

"  One  impulse  from  a  vernal  wood 
May  teach  us  more  of  man. 
Of  moral  evil  and  of  good, 
Than  all  the  sages  can  ; " 


CHRISTIANITY   AND   OTHER   RELIGIONS.  293 

but  only  if  we  are  ourselves  sages, — otherwise  it  will  probably 
teach  us  nothing. 

It  is  not  in  the  least  wonderful  that  all  the  heathen  religions 
should  have  often  not  only  failed  to  read,  but  grievously  mis- 
read the  book  of  general  revelation,  or  that  not  one  of  them 
should  have  found  the  key  to  its  interpretation  as  a  whole,  or 
the  right  point  of  view  from  which  to  regard  it.  It  is  very 
wonderful  that  there  should  be  a  religion  of  which  this  cannot 
be  said.     And  of  Christianity  it  cannot  be  said. 

As  regards  the  physical  world,  obviously  in  even  the  highest 
forms  of  polytheism  the  divine  is  rather  viewed  as  a  revela- 
tion of  nature  than  nature  as  a  revelation  of  the  divine. 
The  gods  have  grown  out  of  religious  representations  of  the 
powers  of  nature,  and  are  still  considered  as  subordinate  to 
and  limited  by  nature.  They  are  the  revealers  and  not 
the  revealed.  The  natural  world  is  first;  the  divine  world 
is  second.  Nor  can  nature  be  consistently  and  rightly  ac- 
cepted as  a  revelation  of  the  divine  by  pantheistic  faiths,  for 
pantheism  either  identifies  nature  with  the  divine,  or  so  con- 
founds the  natural  and  the  divine  that  the  divine  is  thought 
of  as  physical,  and  thereby  degraded,  or  the  world  is  absorbed 
or  dissolved  into  the  divine,  and  represented  as  an  illusion.  In 
all  these  cases  nature  is  conceived  of  both  as  more  and  as  less 
than  a  revelation,  but  not  truly  as  a  revelation.  Christianity, 
however,  takes  its  stand  firmly  and  decidedly,  as  a  fully 
developed  monotheistic  faith,  which  has  appropriated  the  truth 
of  Judaism,  on  the  position  that  the  universe  is  a  creation  of 
God's  word,  a  manifestation  of  His  mind,  a  disclosure  of  His 
eternal  power  and  Godhead.  It  unreservedly  accepts  it  as 
such,  and  thus  makes  nature's  religious  teaching  also  its  own, 
and  puts  itself  into  a  right  relation  to  all  physical  science. 

Then,  as  to  the  mental  and  moral  constitution  of  man. 
There  is  little  recognition  in  the  lower  forms  of  religion  of 
there  being  any  divine  revelation  in  this  volume.  In  Brah- 
manism  man  began  to  seek  for  God  in  thought ;  Zoroastrianism, 
Buddhism,  Confucianism,  discerned  the  divine  chiefly  in  con- 
science, and  hence  have  sometimes  been  classed  as  ethical 
religions;  in  Mahommedanism  God  was  above  all  conceived 
of    as   absolute    will,    and   in   Judaism   as   a   righteous   will. 


294  CHRISTIANITY    AND    OTHER   RELIGIONS. 

Christianity  fully  recognises  the  whole  revelation  of  God  in 
man,  and  represents  the  completion  of  the  revelation  of  God 
as  made  through  a  perfect  man.  The  religion  of  Greece 
tended  to  form  artists,  and  that  of  Scandinavia  warriors; 
Brahmanism  is  the  religion  of  priests,  and  Buddhism  of 
ascetics.  But  Christianity  aims  at  the  production  of  men, 
true  and  complete  men,  sons  of  God  perfect  as  their  Father 
in  heaven  is  perfect.  It  cannot  aim  at  less,  for,  amidst  all 
the  sinfulness  of  men,  it  discerns  also  all  the  divine  features 
and  possibilities  which  are  in  him. 

History  is  the  volume  of  general  revelation  which  the  ethnic 
religions  have  most  neglected.  The  two  greatest  of  them — 
Brahmanism  and  Buddhism — do  worse  than  ignore  it ;  they 
take  up  a  decidedly  hostile  attitude  towards  it,  regarding 
salvation  only  as  the  escape  of  the  individual  from  temporal 
limits  and  social  ties.  Mazdeism,  in  spite  of  its  dualism,  and 
its  narrowness  and  meagreness  of  conception,  was  probably 
in  this  respect  the  least  defective  heathen  faith.  Judaism  had 
its  general  doctrine  of  providence  and  its  distinctive  Messianic 
hope.  But  Christianity  came  to  proclaim  and  found  "the 
Kingdom  of  God,"  as  the  realisation  of  the  purpose  which  had 
been  running  through  the  ages,  as  the  fulfilment  of  the  law 
and  the  prophets,  and  as  destined  to  overspread  and  transform 
the  whole  earth.  It  came  not  merely  to  save  men,  but  to 
regenerate  and  sanctify  humanity.  It  identified  the  goal 
which  it  set  before  itself  with  the  chief  end  of  man  and  the 
final  cause  of  history,  viewing  in  the  same  light  the  fates  of 
the  mightiest  nations  and  the  events  which  befell  the  humblest 
individuals.  It  taught  men  to  look  in  all  past  history  for  the 
evidences  of  God's  sovereignty,  wisdom,  justice,  and  goodness, 
and  to  believe  that  from  the  time  of  Christ's  incarnation, 
divine  truth  and  grace  would  be  traceable,  working  ever  more 
mightily  until  all  falsehood  should  be  exposed,  all  evil  ex- 
pelled, the  triumph  of  holiness  and  love  complete,  and  the 
entire  world  laid  as  a  trophy  at  the  feet  of  Him  who  once  wore 
a  crown  of  thorns. 

Christianity,  let  it  be  repeated,  is  the  religion  which  alone 
has  known  to  place  itself  in  a  perfectly  right  relationship  to 
the  whole  general  revelation  of  God.     It  does  not  keep  aloof 


CHRISTIANITY    AND    OTHER   RELIGIONS.  295 

from  it,  and  still  less  does  it  oppose  it.  It  is  willing  to  con- 
form to  it,  and  to  be  judged  by  it,  so  far  as  general  revelation 
extends.  It  cordially  accepts  it  in  all  its  length  and  breadth, 
confident  that  physical  discovery,  mental  science,  and  historical 
research  can  find  only  what  will  prove  an  addition  to  its  own 
wealth. 

While  Christianity,  however,  accepts  the  general  revelation 
of  God,  it  does  not  confine  itself  to  it ;  on  the  contrary,  it 
professes  to  be  a  special  revelation,  and  consequently  assumes 
the  possibility,  needfulness,  and  reality  of  special  revelation. 
It  is  the  task  of  the  Christian  apologist  to  exhibit  fully  what 
grounds  there  are  for  this  assumption.  Here  it  may  be  enough 
to  say,  first,  that  the  fact  that  all  the  religions  of  heathendom 
have  so  seriously  misunderstood  general  revelation,  as  they 
undoubtedly  have  done,  seems  of  itself  to  show  that  a  special 
revelation  cannot  reasonably  be  deemed  unnecessary;  and, 
secondly,  that  if  any  one,  with  awakened  conscience,  duly 
considers  man's  condition  as  a  sinner — observes  how  little 
nature  has  to  tell  as  to  the  way  in  which  God  will  deal  with 
sinners — realises  how  impossible  it  is  to  love  God  with  any 
real,  earnest,  steady  love,  so  long  as  we  are  conscious  of  being 
in  revolt  against  Him — and  marks  how  signally,  how  terribly, 
the  heathen  religions  have  erred  in  regard  to  the  nature  and 
means  of  salvation, — he  will  probably  be  little  disposed  to 
dispute  the  necessity  of  a  special  revelation,  and  he  will 
certainly  be  in  the  only  proper  frame  of  mind  to  judge 
of  the  evidence  which  can  be  adduced  for  the  reality  of  such 
revelation. 

Special  revelation  may  appear  in  two  forms.  The  lower 
form  comes  first.  God  may  manifest  Himself  by  particular 
interventions  amidst  fixed  laws,  by  visions  and  voices,  by  the 
inspired  utterances  of  law-givers,  psalmists,  and  seers ;  and 
the  memory  of  His  disclosures  may  be  perpetuated  in  social 
ordinances,  religious  rites,  or  literary  compositions.  A  re- 
velation of  this  kind  through  words  and  institutions  was  what 
the  Jewish  economy  claimed  to  be.  Christianity  admitted  its 
claim.  It  abolished,  indeed,  the  law  so  far  as  it  was  external, 
temporary,  and  superficial,   substituting   for  it  one  which  is 


296  CHRISTIANITY    AND    OTHER   RELIGIONS. 

spiritual,  eternal,  and  sufficient ;  but  it  transferred  to  itself 
all  that  was  of  permanent  value  in  the  Old  Testament ;  educed 
out  of  its  particular  practices  and  statements  the  universal 
principles  implied  in  them;  provided  in  the  work  of  Jesus 
Christ  satisfaction  for  the  religious  wants  expressed  in  its 
rites,  symbols,  and  sacriiSces;  and  shed  a  light  over  every 
page  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  which  should  make  them  far 
more  instructive  and  profitable  to  the  Christian  than  they  ever 
could  be  to  the  Jew.  While  the  Gospel  frees  us  from  bondage 
to  the  letter  of  the  older  dispensation,  it  at  the  same  time 
enables  us  to  discover,  with  greatly  increased  clearness,  the 
true  significance  of  the  revelation  on  which  that  dispensation 
rested. 

What  Christianity  claims,  however,  as  its  own  great  dis- 
tinction, is  another  and  much  higher  form  of  special  revelation. 
God's  general  revelation  of  Himself  is  by  fixed  laws  of  order 
which  know  no  pity,  which  show  no  forgiveness,  which  are 
indifferent  to  the  interests  of  individuals,  which  conceal  the 
divine  character  in  some  respects  while  they  reveal  it  in  others. 
God's  special  revelation  of  Himself  by  intervening  among  these 
laws  in  miraculous  acts  and  inspired  words  brings  Him  nearer 
to  individual  hearts,  and  yet  it  leaves  Him  far  away ;  for  after 
all  but  signs  and  sounds  have  been  given,  not  Himself;  He 
is  Himself  still  shrouded  in  darkness,  still  hidden  where  no 
man  can  approach  Him.  Can  He  come  yet  nearer  man  that 
man  may  draw  closer  to  Him  ?  Christianity  answers,  and  its 
answer  is  Christ, — the  person,  the  character,  and  the  work  of 
Christ.  The  highest  form  of  special  revelation — the  revelation 
which  rests  on  all  other  revelation,  and  in  which  all  other 
revelation  is  completed — the  revelation  which  is  the  con- 
summation of  the  whole  process  of  the  divine  self-manifesta- 
tion, and  which  brings  with  it  the  realisation  of  all  that  religion 
implies, — is,  according  to  Christianity,  revelation  through  a 
human  person  possessed  of  all  human  graces  and  virtues,  and 
exhibiting  in  human  conditions,  in  human  action,  and  in 
human  suffering,  the  divine  love  and  sympathy.  The  perfect 
union  of  the  divine  and  human  in  Christ — the  fulness  of  the 
Godhead  disclosed  in  perfect  manhood, — to  the  end  that, 
through  the  putting  away  of  sin  and  the  work  of  the  Holy 


CHRISTIANITY   AND   OTHER   RELIGIONS.  297 

Spirit,  men  may  be  not  merely  servants  but  sons  of  God, 
enjoying  free  and  entire  communion  with  Him,  and  living 
in  a  righteous  and  loving  relationship  to  one  another, — this 
Christianity  puts  forward  as  its  central  idea,  and  at  the  same 
time  as  historical  fact.  It  is  impossible  even  to  imagine  how 
in  the  domain  of  religion  there  can  be  anything  higher  or 
more  perfect.  It  completes  revelation.  It  founds  the  absolute 
religion.  Henceforth  there  may  still  be  unlimited  spiritual 
progress,  but  it  must  be  within  the  outlines  of  this  revelation 
and  on  the  basis  of  this  religion.  Other  foundation  can  no 
man  lay  than  that  which  is  laid. 

The  claim  which  Christianity  makes  for  Christ  is  one  which 
no  other  religion  makes  for  its  founder.  Confucius  is  repre- 
sented merely  as  a  sage,  Zoroaster  and  Mahommed  only  as 
prophets.  Buddha  alone  can  be  set  over  against  Christ  as  one 
deemed  by  his  followers  both  God  and  man.  But  what  a 
contrast!  Do  not  these  two  great  solitary  figures  rise  up 
before  us,  as  if  to  show  how  vast  is  the  distance  between  the 
wisdom  of  God  and  the  wisdom  of  man?  Christ — the  God- 
man — God  in  infinite  love  and  condescension  taking  upon 
Him  human  nature  and  becoming  a  human  brother:  Buddha 
— the  man-God — with  his  vain  and  presumptuous  boast  of 
having  raised  himself  to  Godhead  by  his  own  power  and  know- 
ledge. Christ  revealing  the  Father  :  Buddha  proclaiming  that 
there  is  no  Father,  and  that  all  existence  is  evil  and  vanity. 
Christ  bringing  life  and  immortality  to  light :  Buddha  setting 
forth  only  nothingness. 

I  must  conclude,  not  at  the  close,  but  at  the  commencement 
of  my  subject.  I  have  sought  merely  to  introduce  you  into  it ; 
but  I  have  sought  to  do  so  through  what  seems  to  me  the 
main  entrance,  where  a  view  is  to  be  had  of  that  general 
relationship  between  Christianity  and  other  religions  whence 
all  their  special  relationships  diverge.  To  follow  up  these 
latter — to  attempt  to  explore  the  subject  as  a  whole — is  not 
work  for  a  lecture,  or  for  a  series  of  lectures,  but  the  appro- 
priate task  of  a  science,  the  great  science  of  Comparative 
Theology.  It  is  a  science  which  is  unfortunately  cultivated 
by  many  who  endeavour  to  make  it  yield  anti-Christian  and 
even  atheistical  inferences,  but  that  is  assuredly  not  due  to 


298  CHRISTIANITY    AND    OTHER   RELIGIONS. 

the  real  character  of  the  study  itself,  but  simply  to  the  mental 
perversity  of  those  individuals.  The  study  itself  is  a  magni- 
ficent demonstration,  not  only  that  man  was  made  for  religion, 
but  of  what  religion  he  was  made  for.  The  more  accurately 
the  nature  of  religion  is  determined,  the  more  thoroughly  its 
various  forms  are  studied,  and  the  more  closely  they  are  com- 
pared, the  more  conclusively  will  it  appear  that  Christianity 
alone  is  the  ideal  of  all  religion,  and  alone  satisfies  the  spiritual 
wants  of  humanity;  that  Christ  is  "the  desire  of  all  nations," 
and  the  appointed  Saviour  of  the  world,  in  whom  all  perplexi- 
ties of  the  soul  are  reconciled,  and  in  whom  alone  the  restless 
hearts  of  men  can  find  peace.  If  it  be  true,  on  the  one  hand, 
that  the  ethnic  religions  can  only  be  understood  when  viewed 
in  relation  to  Christianity,  it  is  also  true,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  Christianity  cannot  be  fully  understood  unless  viewed  in 
relation  to  those  religions.  We  must  know  what  questions  the 
human  soul  has  been  putting  to  itself  in  various  ages,  lands, 
and  circumstances,  and  what  are  the  answers  which  it  has  been 
giving  to  them,  before  we  can  appreciate  aright  the  compre- 
hensiveness and  aptness  of  the  response  contained  in  the 
Gospel.  Not  one  of  the  features  or  doctrines  of  Christianity 
will  fail  to  appear  in  a  brighter  light,  and  with  a  diviner 
beauty,  after  they  have  been  compared  and  contrasted  with 
the  correlative  features  and  doctrines  of  other  religions. 


XXVI. 

SOME   REQUIREMENTS   OF   A   PRESENT-DAY 
CHRISTIAN   APOLOGETICS.! 

BY  a  Christian  Apologetics  I  mean  a  vindication  of  Chris- 
tianity which  aims  at  being  thorough  and  comprehensive  ; 
one  which  includes  the  theory  as  well  as  the  practice  of  the 
vindication,  and  which  seeks  not  merely  to  defend  some 
particular  portion  of  Christianity,  but  to  justify  it  as  a  whole. 
Christian  Apologetics  proposes  to  itself  a  distinctly  practical 
end,  victory  over  all  doubt  and  disbelief  as  to  the  truth  and 
excellence  of  Christianity  ;  and  it  presupposes  in  the  competent 
apologist  an  extensive  and  intimate  knowledge  of  Christianity, 
and  an  adequate  acquaintance  with  all  the  exegetical,  historical, 
and  theoretical  disciplines  of  theology  which  contribute  to  such 
a  knowledge  of  Christianity  as  is  required  for  a  conclusive  and 
complete  defence  of  it. 

Christian  Apologetics  as  thus  understood  is  of  comparatively 
recent  origin.  It  is  the  natural  and  necessary  outgrowth, 
however,  of  the  history  of  Christian  apology,  and  that  may  be 
justly  traced  back  to  the  advent  of  Christianity  itself.  Christian 
apology  is  as  old  as  Christianity.  The  prophecy  of  Simeon, 
spoken  to  Mary,  "  Behold,  this  child  is  set  for  the  falling  and 
rising  up  of  many  in  Israel — koI  eh  arj^eiov  avriXeyofievov — and 
for  a  sign  which  is  spoken  against,"  was  constantly  verified  in 
our  Saviour's  life-time ;  and  so  the  task  of  self- vindication,  by 
word  and  works,  was  laid  upon  Him  as  a  considerable  part  of 
what  was  given  Him  to  do.     He  was  His  own  apologist. 

The  earliest  preaching  of  the  apostles  was  mainly  apologetic, 
for  it  was  mainly  what  St  Luke  calls  it,  "a  preaching  of  the 
resurrection,"  the  fact  by  which  Christ  was  manifestly  declared 

^  A  Lecture  delivered  in  St  Mary's  Cathedral,  to  the  Edinburgh  Diocesan 

Church  Reading  Union,  on  Wednesday,  22nd  March  1899. 

299 


300  PRESENT-DAY   CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS. 

to  be  the  Son  of  God,  and  by  which  the  truth  and  success  of 
His  mission  were  infallibly  sealed.  The  epistles,  and  still  more 
the  discourses,  of  St  Paul  are  largely  apologetic.  Seeing  that 
Christ  crucified  was  to  the  Jews  a  stumbling-block  and  to  the 
Greeks  foolishness,  he  had  to  labour  to  show  that  He  was  in 
reality  "the  power  of  God  and  the  wisdom  of  God  unto 
salvation."  All  the  evangelists  had  obviously,  in  the  composition 
of  their  Gospels,  an  apologetic  purpose  to  some  extent  in  view. 
The  key  to  the  special  character  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  for 
example,  is  probably  to  be  found  in  the  words  (xx.  31): 
"  These  are  written  that  ye  might  believe  that  Jesus  is  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  and  that  believing  ye  might  have  life 
through  His  name."  They  tell  us  that  their  author's  record  of 
the  words  and  deeds  of  Christ  was  not  meant  to  be  a  mere 
general  biography,  but  had  also  expressly  for  aim  to  show  that 
the  man  known  by  the  name  of  Jesus  was  none  other  than  the 
promised  Messiah,  and  even  the  Incarnate  Word. 

The  necessity  of  self-defence,  of  apology,  imposed  upon 
Christianity  from  the  first  has  never  ceased.  Nor  is  there  any 
prospect  of  its  ceasing  in  the  present  state  of  being.  We  may 
even  well  doubt  if  it  would  be  for  its  good  to  be  freed  from  that 
necessity.  The  need  of  self-vindication  seems  to  be  for  a  true 
religion  a  beneficent  necessity.  Spiritual  truth  has  nothing 
more  to  dread  than  passive,  unintelligent  acceptance.  A  faith 
very  easily  acquired  is  one  which  will  be  very  easily  lost,  and 
which  will  not  be  of  the  highest  character. 

The  continuous  hostility  which  has  been  manifested  towards 
Christianity  may  seem  to  some  to  be  of  itself  a  presumption 
against  its  truth.  But  it  is  really  nothing  of  the  kind ;  and, 
in  fact,  it  is  the  immediate  and  inevitable  consequence  of 
its  truth.  The  explanation  of  the  aversion  still  displayed  to 
Christianity  is  just  the  same  as  the  explanation  of  the  hostility 
manifested  towards  Christ  Himself  in  the  days  of  His  flesh. 
Christianity  is,  like  Christ,  the  Truth,  and  as  such  it  makes 
claims  which  human  nature  can  ill  tolerate.  As  pure  spiritual 
truth,  it  demands  from  man  a  clean  heart  and  a  right  spirit, 
a  humility  and  a  piety,  and  a  submission  and  obedience  to  the 
whole  will  of  God,  as  revealed  in  Christ,  which  cannot  but  evoke 
resistance  and  enmity  so  long  as  man  is  what  he  is.     So  true 


PRESENT-DAY   CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS.  301 

is  this  that  we  may  safely  say,  that  even  were  the  whole  world 
to  become  intellectually  convinced  of  the  truth  of  Christianity, 
and  outwardly  to  profess  the  Christian  faith,  the  need  for  a 
Christian  Apologetics,  although  it  would  be  greatly  lessened, 
would  not  be  wholly  removed.  There  would  no  longer  be 
required  an  apologetic  of  Christianity  against  avowed  enemies, 
but  there  would  still  be  required  an  apologetic  against  the 
doubts  and  prejudices  which  Christianity  excites  in  the  minds 
not  merely  of  nominal  Christians,  but  often  even  of  those  who 
are,  on  the  whole,  truly  Christian  men.  It  is  chiefly,  perhaps, 
such  doubts  and  prejudices,  deep-rooted  in  the  natural  heart, 
which  give  the  preacher  and  pastor  a  practical  interest  in 
apologetics.  They  may  seldom  be  called  to  be  apologists 
against  the  avowed  foes  of  the  Christian  faith,  but  they  must 
have  constant  need  to  be  apologists  for  that  faith  in  the  forum 
of  the  hearts  of  their  hearers  and  people,  and  perhaps  even  of 
their  own  hearts. 

Christian  Apologetics  is,  however,  of  all  the  departments 
of  Christian  Theology  the  one  which  has  been  most  influenced 
from  without.  It  is  the  one  which  has  necessarily  varied  most 
from  age  to  age,  and  that  for  the  simple  reason  that  vindication 
must  always  conform  itself  to  the  character  of  the  opposition. 
But  the  opposition  to  Christianity  has  never  ceased,  nor  ever 
ceased  to  change  from  age  to  age,  so  that  it  has  in  course 
of  time  assumed  eveiy  conceivable  variety  of  form.  Hence 
Christianity,  claiming  as  it  does  sovereignty  over  all  individual 
and  social  life,  in  every  age  and  under  all  conditions,  has  had 
to  vindicate  itself  anew  to  every  new  generation  with  special 
reference  to  its  prejudices  and  anti-Christian  tendencies.  It 
has  thus  had  to  encounter  successively  all  sorts  of  evil  and 
hostile  powers — wrong  modes  of  thought,  corrupt  habits  of 
life,  despotic  governments,  anarchist  schemes,  false  philo- 
sophies, sciences  pushing  themselves  beyond  their  legitimate 
limits,  rival  religions,  proposed  substitutes  for  itself,  or 
serious  perversions  of  itself.  The  story  of  this  conflict 
running  through  all  the  Christian  centuries  would,  if  worthily 
told,  be  of  the  highest  interest.  Probably  no  department 
of  theology  has  a  more  instructive  history  than  Christian 
Apologetics. 


302  PRESENT-DAY    CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS. 

There  will  always  be  need  for  Christian  Apologies  as  distinct 
from  Christian  Apologetics,  seeing  that  there  will  always  be 
partial  attacks  on  Christianity,  attacks  on  this  or  that  particular 
Christian  fact  or  doctrine,  which  need  to  be  repelled.  But  in 
our  late  age  of  Christian  history  much  more  is  needed.  There 
are  required  vindications  of  Christianity  as  a  whole ;  vindications 
against  all  really  dangerous  species  and  serious  forms  of 
assault ;  learned,  thorough,  and  comprehensive  vindications, 
capable  of  affording  guidance  and  aid  to  partial  apologetic 
labours,  and  at  the  same  time  accomplishing  what  these 
cannot  effect.  Such  a  Christian  Apologetics  is  manifestly  very 
specially  needed  at  the  present  day.  Now,  as  never  before, 
what  is  most  demanded  in  the  way  of  Christian  defence  is  far 
less  to  vindicate  it  against  any  particular  charge  or  class  of 
charges,  than  to  vindicate  its  right  to  be  regarded  as  the 
Absolute  Truth,  as  the  Divine  disclosure  in  essentials  of  all  that 
is  required  to  sustain,  purify,  and  perfect  the  human  spirit. 
It  is  to  show  that  Christ,  and  Christ  alone,  is  "  The  Way,  the 
Truth,  and  the  Life,"  and  can  alone  enable  humanity  to  reach 
the  Absolute  Good — the  realisation  in  itself  and  in  the  world 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God, 

Perhaps  it  may  seem  as  if  a  theological  discipline  which  thus 
aims  at  being  Christian  warfare  on  a  comprehensive  scale,  and 
conducted  in  a  scientific  spirit,  and  which  deliberately  assumes 
a  sort  of  militant  or  strategical  attitude  towards  philosophies, 
sciences,  and  schemes  of  individual  life  and  social  organisation, 
must  be  a  bellicose  sort  of  discipline,  more  likely  to  provoke 
than  to  do  away  with  hostility.  But  no !  Its  real  end  is  peace. 
And  therefore  it  aims  at  clearing  away  misunderstandings  and 
making  unreasonable  attacks  impossible  by  showing  the  true 
relations  between  Christianity  on  the  one  hand,  and  philosophy, 
science,  and  practical  life  on  the  other.  A  scientific  Christian 
Apologetics  would  set  an  example  to,  and  would  doubtless  have 
a  happy  influence  on.  Christian  Apologies.  The  authors  of  the 
latter  are  especially  under  temptations  to  do  their  work  in  a 
narrow  and  unfair  manner.  The  more  the  thoroughness,  com- 
prehensiveness, and  carefulness  of  science  are  introduced  into 
Christian  self-vindication,  the  more  will  it  be  freed  from 
unchristian  characteristics. 


PRESENT-DAY    CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS.  303 

The  remarks  just  made  directly  lead  me  to  say  that  one 
manifest  requirement  of  such  a  Christian  Apologetics  as  is  now 
more  than  ever  needed  is  an  absolute  truthfulness  of  spirit 
which  will  meet  the  demands  of  an  age  that,  professedly  at 
least,  admires  scientific  accuracy.  It  is  all  the  more  important 
to  emphasise  this,  because  the  Christian  apologist  is  necessarily 
in  danger  of  forgetting  it.  Every  apologist  is.  The  desire  to 
do  the  best  he  can  for  the  cause  or  client  he  defends  is  apt  to 
tempt  him  to  a  one-sidedness  and  exaggeration  of  statement 
wrong  in  itself,  and  likely  to  do  harm,  yea  sure  to  do  harm  if 
the  cause  be  wholly  good,  the  client  entirely  innocent,  so  that 
cause  and  client  stand  in  need  of  nothing  except  to  be  seen  to  be 
what  they  really  are.  The  literature  of  Christian  Apologetics — 
of  the  department  of  Christian  study  which  has  for  its  special  aim 
the  defence  of  Him  who  is  the  Truth — is  unfortunately,  how- 
ever, just  the  kind  of  theological  literature  which  is  the  poorest 
in  manifestly  truthful  books  ;  just  the  one  which  abounds  most 
in  works  that  at  once  excite  suspicion  as  to  their  fairness. 
Perhaps  Dr.  Arnold  spoke  somewhat  in  his  haste  when  he  said 
that,  with  the  exception  of  Hooker  and  Butler,  there  appeared  to 
him  to  be  "  in  all  English  divines  a  want  of  believing  or  dis- 
believing anything  simply  because  it  is  true  or  false."  But  the 
judgment  is,  I  fear,  more  applicable  to  apologetic  literature 
than  to  any  other  sort  of  theological  literature.  In  English 
apologetic  literature  Butler's  "Analogy"  is  a  unique  phenomenon, 
owing  to  the  perfection  of  intellectual  truthfulness — the  com- 
bination of  caution  and  candour — which  it  displays.  Were 
Christian  apologists  to  follow  the  example  set  by  the  great  and 
good  Bishop  Butler — would  they  only  bring  to  their  apologetic 
labours  the  self-denial  and  self-restraint  appropriate  to  them — 
how  much  more  really  successful  they  would  be. 

Another  requirement  of  such  a  Christian  Apologetics  as  our 
age  needs  is  that  it  should  be  thoroughly  Christian.  All 
theologians,  I  suppose,  have  now  come  to  see  that  Christian 
Dogmatics  must  be  Christo-centric.  Christian  Apologetics 
must  be  equally  so.  Christianity  stands  or  falls  with  Christ. 
What  Christ  did  not  reveal  or  imply  to  be  revealed  the 
Christian  apologist  is  under  no  obligation  to   defend.     It  is 


304  PRESENT-DAY    CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS. 

through  its  relationship  to  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ  that 
we  are  to  view  the  revelation  of  God  in  physical  nature,  in  the 
human  spirit,  in  general  history,  in  the  religious  experience  of 
the  race,  and  in  Scripture.  Knowledge  of  God  flows  through 
all  these  channels,  and  yet  a  knowledge  of  God  as  He  really  is, 
a  view  of  Him  in  the  unity,  entirety,  and  glory  of  His  character, 
is  only  to  be  attained  by  those  who  stand  at  the  centre  and 
summit  of  revelation,  the  manifestation  of  God  in  Christ.  The 
significance  of  Christ's  life,  and  the  truth  of  what  He  made 
known  as  to  God  and  man  and  their  relationships,  is  essentially 
what  a  Christian  Apologetics  has  to  aim  at  making  evident,  and 
this  aim  it  ought  clearly  to  avow  at  the  outset,  and  seek  through- 
out to  realise. 

Christian  Apologetics  ought,  therefore,  it  seems  to  me,  to 
start  with  an  exposition  of  the  distinctive  Christian  view  of 
Christ  Himself  and  of  His  work  and  teaching,  as  being  that 
which  has  to  be  vindicated.  Whatever  opposes  itself  thereto  has 
to  be  met.  Whatever  is  contrary  to  essential  Christian  truth, 
and  only  that,  is  the  enemy  with  which  the  Christian  apologist 
has  to  contend.  For  example,  there  is  the  Christian  concep- 
tion of  God.  It  is  Christ's  own  representation  of  God  as  the 
Father  in  Heaven,  whose  inmost  nature  is  holy  love,  and  who 
seeks  the  holiness  and  happiness  of  all  His  children.  But 
there  are  other  conceptions  of  God  :  those  on  which  the  ethnic 
religions  rest,  the  conception  given  of  God  even  in  the  Old 
Testament,  seeing  that  it  had  so  far  the  limitations  necessarily 
inseparable  from  an  initiatory  revelation,  the  abstract  and 
abstruse  conceptions  of  God  set  forth  by  speculative  philo- 
sophers, and  the  monistic  or  mechanical  conceptions  of  God 
which  an  exclusive  study  of  external  nature  has  often  suggested 
to  physical  scientists,  and  the  like.  Now,  it  is  the  idea  of  God 
in  its  distinctively  Christian  form — in  other  words,  the  idea  of 
God  as  revealed  through  Christ — that  the  Christian  apologist 
has  to  defend  against  all  such  other  ideas  as  those  referred  to 
whenever  they  are  put  forward  in  competition  with  it.  And 
the  more  faithfully  the  Christian  apologist  adheres  to  the 
distinctively  Christian  view,  neither  adding  to  it  nor  taking 
from  it,  the  more  easy  will  he  find  his  task  to  be,  the  stronger 
his  cause.     There  is  no  other  idea  of  God  so  defensible  as  the 


PRESENT-DAY    CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS.  305 

Christian  idea.  The  eame  may  be  said  of  all  other  Christian 
ideas  and  disclosures.  There  is  no  system  of  belief  which 
carries  with  it  so  much  evidence  of  its  truth  as  the  Christian 
system  in  its  original  form. 

With  the  requirement  which  has  just  been  indicated  there  is 
another  closely  connected.  A  Christian  Apologetics  adapted  to 
meet  the  wants  of  the  present  age  cannot  be  one  which  pro- 
ceeds on  the  dominant  presupposition  of  the  "  evideutialists  " 
of  the  last  century  and  of  a  large  portion  of  the  present  cen- 
tury ;  namely,  the  presupposition  that  the  evidence  for 
Christianity  is,  if  not  exclusively  at  least  mainly,  external 
criteria  associated  with  its  promulgation — physical  sensible 
miracles,  definite  predictions  of  particular  occurrences,  and 
human  testimony. 

Those  so-called  evideutialists  put  forth  all  their  strength  in 
the  attempt  to  prove,  against  Deists  and  rationalists,  that  reason 
was  bound  to  accept  all  that  is  taught  in  the  Bible,  primarily 
and  chiefly,  if  not  entirely,  because  it  had  been  adequately 
authenticated  to  be  a  Divine  revelation  by  sensible  miracles 
and  definite  predictions.  They  regarded  what  was  most  dis- 
tinctive in  it  as  consisting  of  mysteries  which  reason  could  not 
directly  apprehend  or  deal  with,  but  which  it  was  bound  to  accept, 
whether  it  had  any  insight  into  their  truth  and  meaning  or  not, 
on  the  ground  of  their  having  been  sufficiently  attested  by 
special  Divine  interventions.  Few,  if  any,  of  them  may  have 
left  wholly  out  of  account  so-called  internal  evidence — the  self- 
evidence  or  intrinsic  reasonableness  of  the  Divine  oracles — but 
they  laid  comparatively  little  stress  on  it,  and  some  of  them  even 
represented  the  appeal  to  it  as  presumptuous.  Prodigiously 
fertile  as  the  eighteenth  century  was  in  apologetic  literature,  it 
produced  only  one  treatise  of  note  on  the  internal  evidence,^  and 
it  is  said  to  have  been  suspected  of  being  the  work  of  a  dis- 
guised enemy.  Within  the  last  half-century  there  has  been  a 
remarkable  change  of  opinion  in  this  respect.  No  theologian 
would  now  be  regarded  as  a  wise  bailder  who  attempted  to 
raise  a  Christian  Apologetics  on  the  basis  which  the  evideutialists 

1  Soame  Jenjm's  ''View  of  the  Internal  Evidence  of  the  Christian  Religion," 
1776. 

U 


306  PEESENT-DAY    CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS. 

deemed  to  be  alone  worthy  of  confidence.  Probably  any  book 
professing  to  treat  of  the  evidences  of  Christianity  under  the 
two  heads  of  external  and  internal,  would  at  present  have  small 
chance  of  being  read  except  by  very  old-fashioned  persons. 

The  evidentialist  view,  it  is  seen,  did  great  injustice  to 
such  a  revelation  as  the  Christian,  and  was,  in  fact,  neither 
reasonable  nor  Christian.  A  revelation  which  presents  mysteries 
as  its  substantive  and  distinctive  message  is  a  revelation  which 
does  not  reveal,  and  belief  in  which  is  not  belief  in  truth  as 
such.  Revelation  is  the  manifestation  of  spiritual  light,  and 
spiritual  light  is  what  can  be  seen  and  felt  by  the  spirit.  There 
must,  indeed,  be  mysteries  involved  in  every  form  of  revelation, 
as  there  is  in  every  phase  of  existence,  but  the  idea  of  a  revela- 
tion consisting  of  mysteries  which  reason  is  shut  up  to  believe 
in,  yet  has  no  real  insight  into,  is  an  unwarranted  and  unworthy 
one,  and  most  certainly  does  not  correspond  to  the  revelation 
given  us  in  the  Bible  and  through  Christ.  That  revelation, 
rightly  and  comprehensively  viewed,  is  gloriously  self-evidencing, 
and  its  best  apologists  are  necessarily  those  who  see  and  help 
others  to  see  most  clearly  that  it  is  so.  It  is  full  of  reason,  and 
in  essentials  free  from  all  unreasonableness  ;  and  it  is  the 
reasons  in  it,  not  reasons  extrinsic  to  it,  which  constitute  the 
strongest  proof  of  its  truth,  and  of  its  right  to  our  acceptance 
and  obedience.  The  evidentialists,  therefore,  certainly  erred 
seriously  when  they  separated,  to  the  extent  which  they  did, 
the  proof  of  Christianity  from  its  substance  and  content ;  when 
they  went  so  near  to  the  identification  of  merely  historical 
belief  with  distinctively  Christian  faith,  and  rested  in  so  large  a 
measure  their  hopes  of  making  men  Christians  on  external 
proofs,  which  could  not  bring  the  human  spirit  into  any  direct 
and  immediate  contact  with  the  Divine  truth  necessary  to  the 
maintenance  of  its  religious  life. 

The  Christian  apologists  of  the  present  day  do  well  to  avoid 
the  error  of  the  evidentialists  ;  a  too  exclusive  reliance  on  argu- 
ments which  tend  merely  to  prove  the  credibility  of  the  Biblical 
records  by  their  accordance  with  external  criteria  and  historical 
testimony.  But  they  do,  it  seems  to  me,  the  reverse  of  well 
when  they  fall  back  into  the  error  of  the  Deists — the  error 


PRESENT-DAY   CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS.  307 

which  the  evidentialists  justly,  and  for  the  time  successfully, 
combated  —  the  illusion  that  Christian  faith  is  quite  inde- 
pendent of  historical  facts  and  probable  evidence.  And  that 
is  just  what  not  a  few  are  again  doing.  They  treat  the  evi- 
dentialist  attitude  of  mind  towards  Christianity  as  entirely 
erroneous,  instead  of  only  partially  so.  They  represent  Chris- 
tianity as  so  self-evident,  so  absolutely  certain,  to  intuition, 
or  feeling,  or  faith,  that  reasons  or  arguments,  and  especially 
all  weighing  of  probabilities,  are  irrelevant  to  it.  Such  is  the 
view  which  has  again,  after  a  long  interval  of  discredit  and 
obscurity,  become  prevalent  and  popular.  It  is  one  which  an 
eloquent  speaker  or  skilful  writer  may  make  to  seem  very 
plausible,  and  even  get  credit  for  as  novel  and  original, 
although  in  fact  it  is  only  the  old  delusion  of  Deism  set  forth 
in  fashionable  phraseology. 

The  erroneousness  of  this  view  lies  in  what  it  overlooks ; 
the  essentially  complex  nature  of  Christian  truth,  the  indis- 
soluble connection  between  the  ideal  and  the  real  in  Christian 
truth.  Christianity  is  a  wonderful  and  glorious  fact  as  well 
as  a  sublime  and  ennobling  ideal.  While  a  spirit — the  spirit 
of  righteousness,  purity,  and  charity — it  is  by  no  means  a  dis- 
embodied spirit.  It  centres  in  the  God -man,  in  a  unique 
person,  in  a  history  of  real  redemptive  acts.  Its  ideas  are, 
in  a  sense,  facts  with  a  history ;  and  its  facts  are  media  of  ideas 
and  sources  of  spiritual  life.  Bishop  Westcott,  in  a  fine 
chapter  of  a  very  precious  work,  "  The  Gospel  of  Life,"  declares 
Christianity  to  be  "  the  only  historical  religion,"  and  quite 
successfully  proves  it,  I  think,  in  the  sense  in  which  he  uses 
the  words.  Christianity  is,  alike  in  its  antecedents,  essence, 
and  realisation,  historical  as  no  other  religion  can  be  said  to  be. 
For  in  Christianity,  Christ  Himself  is  what  is  most  essential ; 
it  is  in  His  own  person  and  character.  His  deeds  of  power  and 
mercy,  His  death  for  the  remission  of  sins,  His  resurrection, 
ascension,  and  continued  agency  through  the  Spirit,  and,  in 
a  word,  in  facts,  transactions,  and  experiences,  that  His  Gospel 
centres.  But  a  religion  thus  historical  can  by  no  means  be 
indifferent  to  historical  evidence.  It  is  vain  to  tell  those  who 
put  their  trust  in  such  a  religion  that  they  should  separate 
"the  eternal  truths  of  the  spirit  from  the  contingent  truths 


308  PKESENT-DAY    CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS. 

of  history  "  ;  drop  the  latter,  and  adhere  only  to  the  former.  For 
that  is  to  assume  that  only  a  perishable  importance  attaches 
to  the  historic,  a  merely  casual  worth  to  the  peculiar  essence 
of  Christianity.  And  such  an  assumption  a  Christian  cannot 
admit.  Christ,  far  from  being  of  transitory  significance  in 
Christianity,  gives  to  it  its  abiding  and  inexhaustible  value  and 
vitality.  A  faith,  therefore,  which  does  not  so  lay  hold  of 
Himself  as  to  embrace  the  historical  as  well  as  the  ideal  in 
the  Gospel,  is  no  more  Christian  faith  in  its  truth  and  entirety 
than  that  which  rests  on  the  historical  alone. 

Next,  a  Christian  Apologetics  ought  in  the  present  day  to 
be  scientific,  to  the  extent  at  least  of  being  built  on  a  scientific 
foundation.     Let  us  see  what  this  implies. 

Christian  Apologetics  has  for  end  the  defence  of  Chris- 
tianity. But  Christianity  can  only  be  defended  in  so  far  as 
known.  One  source — by  far  the  chief  source — of  a  knowledge 
of  Christianity  is  the  Scriptures.  Christian  Apologetic  must, 
therefore,  found  largely  on  knowledge  of  Scripture.  On  know- 
ledge of  Scripture,  however,  in  what  form  ?  I  affirm  on  such 
knowledge  in  its  most  scientific  form ;  which  just  means  that 
Christian  Apologetics  should  not  build  on  unproved  assump- 
tions as  to  either  the  character  or  contents  of  Scripture ;  that 
it  should  be  as  little  assumptive  as  possible,  assumptive  being 
equivalent  to  unscientific. 

What  are  the  obligations  thereby  imposed  on  the  Christian 
Apologist  so  far  as  Scripture  is  concerned  ?  One  such  obliga- 
tion is  a  readiness  to  accept  the  results  of  all  truly  scientific, 
strictly  objective  and  impartial,  purely  critico-historical  in- 
vestigations as  to  the  age,  authorship,  credibility,  &c.,  of  the 
documents  which  are  the  sources  of  our  knowledge  of  Chris- 
tianity. The  Christian  Apologist  ought  not  to  cling  to  any 
views  inconsistent  with  such  results  because  they  happen  to 
be  traditional  or  prevalent,  or  to  have  been  long  his  own.  He 
should  fully  acknowledge  the  rights  of  the  kind  of  investiga- 
tion referred  to,  recognise  that  without  it  neither  the  ideas 
nor  the  facts  distinctive  and  constitutive  of  Christianity  can 
be  ascertained  in  a  completely  satisfactory  manner,  and  thank- 
fully accept  whatever  conclusions  it  seems  to   him   to   have 


PRESENT-DAY   CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS.  309 

established.  Such  critico-historical  iuvestigation  is  merely  a 
preliminary  indeed,  yet  it  is  an  indispensable  preliminary  to 
a  scientific  Christian  Apologetics;  and  whoever  would  effec- 
tively contribute  to  the  building  up  of  a  scientific  Christian 
Apologetics  must  make  himself  sufficiently  acquainted  with 
Biblico-critical  research  to  be  able  intelligently  to  appreciate 
and  apply  both  its  processes  and  conclusions. 

Another  obligation,  however,  is  implied.  The  Christian 
apologist  is  bound,  in  his  study  of  the  content  of  Christianity, 
with  a  view  to  its  defence,  to  follow  the  appropriate  scientific 
method.  There  is  such  a  method.  It  is  one  which  has  been 
gradually  ascertained,  and  the  ascertainment  of  which  has  in 
the  present  century  created  a  new  and  most  important  depart- 
ment of  theological  science — what  is  called  Biblical  Theology. 
Now,  it  is  on  such  a  knowledge  of  the  teaching  of  the  Chris- 
tian Scriptures  as  a  correct  Biblical  Theology  will  give  that 
the  Christian  apologist  ought  to  found.  There  are  no  assump- 
tions in  a  knowledge  of  the  kind.  The  method  by  which  it 
is  obtained  is  the  method  common  to  all  careful  study  of  the 
contents  of  works  of  literature.  Biblical  Theology  does  not 
attempt  to  give  any  other  truth  than  that  of  exposition,  but 
it  reaches  and  exhibits  that  truth  with  scientific  thoroughness 
and  impartiality.  It  does  not  set  forth  the  ideas  which  it 
presents  as  true  in  themselves,  but  only  as  truly  in  the  Bible ; 
it  aims  at  doing  no  more  than  giving  a  true  account  of  what 
are  the  religious  ideas  in  the  Bible,  of  how  they  are  related 
as  set  forth  in  the  Bible,  and  of  what  their  history  has  been, 
so  far  as  that  can  be  ascertained.  But  that  is  just  what  is 
most  indispensable  to  the  Christian  apologist  who  would  pro- 
ceed according  to  a  right  method.  His  first  want  is  a  know- 
ledge of  the  nature  or  content  of  Christianity  derived  from  the 
Christian  Scriptures,  in  a  way  the  scientific  legitimacy  of  which 
cannot  be  called  in  question. 

So  long,  however,  as  Biblical  Theology,  in  the  modern  sense 
of  the  term,  did  not  exist,  and  theologians  were  without  almost 
a  conception  of  the  method  on  which  it  proceeds,  there  was, 
of  course,  no  sufficient  response  to  that  prime  want  of  the 
Christian  apologist,  and  it  was  only  natural  that  he  should 
build  largely  on  the  conclusions  of  some  variety  or  other  of 


310  PRESENT-DAY   CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS. 

Christian  Dogmatics,  instead  of  directly  on  the  essential  content 
of  the  Christian  Scriptures  appropriately  ascertained.  In  this 
respect  a  Christian  apologist  of  our  day  has  an  immense  advan- 
tage over  his  predecessors.  He  does  not  require  to  start  with 
human  dogmas  or  a  questionable  method  ;  he  can  start  with 
what  even  those  whom  he  is  about  to  oppose  cannot  deny  to  be 
truly  Scrijjtural  and  Christian.  He  finds  himself  at  the  outset 
in  possession  of  a  knowledge  of  Christianity  immediately,  yet 
scientifically,  drawn  from  its  records ;  a  knowledge  independent 
of  any  dogmatic  system,  yet  a  knowledge  of  the  Christianity  of 
Christ  and  His  apostles,  of  Christianity  in  its  New  Testament 
form  ;  in  a  word,  he  finds  himself  in  possession  of  a  really 
satisfactory  knowledge  of  that  which  is  precisely  what  he 
requires  to  vindicate.  The  more  purely,  the  more  exclusively, 
he  confines  himself,  in  the  first  instance  at  least,  to  that  which 
he  thus  knows,  the  greater,  I  hold,  will  be  his  success  in  every 
way,  and  the  greater  even  will  be  the  ultimate  service  which  he 
may  render  to  Christian  Dogmatics. 

In  order  scientifically  to  base  a  Christian  Apologetics  on 
Scripture,  the  apologist,  I  must  add,  has  no  need  of  going  to 
Scripture  with  any  preconceived  theory  as  to  the  nature  of  its 
inspiration.  It  is  enough  for  him  that  it  is  the  chief  source, 
and  to  a  large  extent  the  one  source,  of  a  knowledge  of  ideas 
and  facts  of  supreme  importance  for  mankind  ;  of  a  knowledge 
of  what  he  recognises  to  have  been  the  most  wonderful  and  the 
most  gracious  of  all  God's  revelations  of  Himself  to  His  rational 
creatures.  It  is  its  essential  content  which  gives  the  Bible  its 
unique  value  to  the  Christian  apologist ;  and  to  gain  a  know- 
ledge of  that  he  needs  to  study  the  Bible  through  no  extraneous 
theory.  The  more  directly  and  ingenuously  he  goes  to  it  the 
better. 

The  Bible  itself,  however,  quite  clearly  shows  us  that  there 
is  a  great  deal  in  the  Bible  which  is  not  sanctioned  by  the 
Bible,  and  that  all  that  is  in  the  Bible  is  not  of  equal  value- 
The  New  Testament  claims  to  be  better  than  the  Old.  Much 
in  the  Old  is  abrogated  by  the  New  as  inconsistent  with  the 
Gospel.  The  sentiments  expressed  in  some  of  the  imprecatory 
psalms  and  Hebrew  war-songs  incorporated — and  to  our  advan- 
tage and  for  our  instruction  incorporated — in  the  Bible,  are  no 


PRESENT-DAY   CHRISTIAN   APOLOGETICS.  311 

more  to  be  cherished  by  Christian  men  than  the  patriarchal 
practice  and  Mosaic  legislation  as  to  polygamy  and  slavery  are 
to  be  followed.  The  germs  of  all  New  Testament  teaching  may 
be  discovered  in  the  Old  Testament ;  but  there  was  nothing  per- 
fected in  the  Old  Testament.  All  perfection  came  through 
Christ.  And  whatever  of  the  Old  Testament  has  not  been 
taken  up  into  the  New  Testament ;  whatever  in  it  was  allowed 
by  Christ,  and  those  whom  He  sent  forth  inspired  by  His  Spirit, 
to  pass  unsanctioned ;  we  are  not  called  on,  as  Christian  apolo- 
gists, to  defend.  The  Bible  is  a  whole  unified,  and  vivified  by  the 
Word  of  God  which  pervades  it  ;  but  that  Word  is  not  to  be 
indiscriminately  identified  with  all  the  words  which  are  in  the 
Bible.  The  apologist  who  undertakes  to  maintain  the  inerrancy 
of  every  statement  in  the  Bible  undertakes  a  task  obviously 
different  from  the  defence  of  Christianity,  and  vastly  more 
difficult. 

The  Christian  apologist  requires  to  distinguish  between  the 
letter  and  the  spirit  even  in  regard  to  the  words  of  Christ  and  of 
the  apostles.  He  has  no  right  to  treat  what  they  enjoined  on 
certain  persons  in  certain  peculiar  circumstances  as  literally 
and  strictly  incumbent  on  all  persons  in  all  circumstances.  He 
must  distinguish  between  the  circumstantial  and  the  essential, 
the  individual  or  special  and  the  universal,  in  their  teaching. 
He  must  not  rest  in  the  letter,  but  must  enter  into  the  spirit  of 
the  words  contained  in  the  New  Testament.  Otherwise  he  will 
do  injustice  to  the  Christian  faith  and  give  advantage  to  its 
adversaries. 

The  Christian  apologist,  then,  should  found  on  the  revelation 
conveyed  by  the  Bible  as  a  whole — the  revelation  of  the  glory 
and  grace  of  God  and  of  the  mind  and  spirit  of  Christ  therein. 
That  is  the  revelation  which  it  is  the  one  great  distinctive 
aim  of  Christian  Apologetics  to  vindicate.  Any  one  who  sees 
this  clearly  will  find  it  easy  to  show  that  a  multitude  of  the 
objections  which  are  urged  against  the  Bible  in  detail  are  so 
irrelevant  and  weak,  when  regarded  as  a  disproof  of  the  Bible 
as  a  whole — i.e.  its  essential  spiritual  content — as  to  prove 
merely  the  inconsiderateness  of  those  who  urge  them. 

The  truth  that  the  Christian  Apologetics  which  our  age  re- 


312  PRESENT-DAY    CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS. 

quires  is  one  distinctively  and  thoroughly  Christian,  must  not, 
I  have  to  remark  next,  be  so  understood  as  to  imply  that  a 
Christian  Apologetics  can  afford  to  disregard  any  serious  attack 
directed  against  Christianity  from  any  quarter.  This  is  laid 
down  in  opposition  to  an  error  which  the  school  of  Ritschl  has 
done  much  to  foster.  The  members  of  that  school  must  be 
credited  with  having  rendered  service  to  Christian  Apologetics 
by  insisting  on  the  reality,  importance,  and  self-evidencing 
power  of  what  is  specifically  Christian  in  theology.  They  have 
seen  very  clearly  what,  plain  as  it  is,  has  sometimes  been 
overlooked,  namely,  that  Christianity  when  endeavouring  to  de- 
fend itself  must  not  efface,  disguise,  or  disown  itself.  When 
Christianity  is  summed  up  in  some  Hegelian  formula,  and  a 
plea  for  the  formula  is  substituted  for  a  defence  of  Christianity, 
the  latter  will  gain  little  even  should  the  plea  be  brilliantly 
successful.  If,  in  order  to  prove  the  truth  of  Christianity,  a 
professedly  Christian  apologist  argues  as  if  Christianity  were 
not  itself,  not  the  religion  of  redemption  and  of  the 'kingdom 
of  God  founded  by  Christ,  but  metaphysics,  philosophy,  positive 
science,  sociology,  ethics,  or  some  ideal  or  dream  of  his  own,  he 
thereby  in  reality  gives  away,  injures,  and  practically  betrays 
the  cause  which  he  undertook  to  defend.  The  Eitschlians  have 
avoided  such  errors,  but  they  have  fallen  into  another  almost  as 
great  when  they  pretend  to  possess  or  demand  from  others  a 
Christian  faith  so  exclusively  drawn  from  the  revelation  of  God 
in  Christ,  and  so  self-sufficing  and  self-certifying  as  to  be  in- 
dependent of  all  objections  to  it  which  natural  reason,  ordinary 
knowledge,  science,  or  philosophy  can  suggest. 

To  attribute  such  an  independence  as  that  to  Christianity — 
to  represent  it  as  so  separated  and  isolated  from  all  other 
truth — is  not  to  honour  and  benefit  it,  as  the  Ritschlians  have 
supposed,  but  is  to  do  it  grave  injustice.  Christianity  makes 
no  claim  to  such  an  immunity  from  attack  as  they  would  give 
it ;  and  it  has  no  need  of  it.  The  truth  as  it  is  in  Christ  is  not 
a  truth  peculiarly  abstracted  and  dissociated  from  all  other 
truth,  but  pre-eminently  the  truth  to  which  all  other  truth  . 
tends  as  its  centre  or  goal.  Truth  in  every  form  is  intrinsically 
favourable  to  Christianity.  That  holds  good  of  no  other 
religion.    Falsehood  in  every  form  is  unfavourable  to  it.    That, 


PRESENT-DAY    CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS.  313 

too,  can  be  said  of  no  other  religion.  All  false  philosophy,  false 
metaphysics,  and  science  falsely  so-called,  is  necessarily  hostile 
to  Christianity ;  and  a  Christianity  true  to  itself  can  have  no 
wish  to  be  secured  against  the  hostility  of  what  is  false.  It 
needs  to  fear  no  foe,  and  can  only  come  forth  strengthened 
from  struggling  with  the  strongest  assailants.  It  has  gained 
immensely  in  wealth  of  knowledge,  in  strength,  and  the 
consciousness  of  strength,  through  having  had  to  test  the 
exaggerated  pretensions  and  combat  the  exorbitant  claims  of 
foes  and  rivals. 

Instead  of  its  being  desirable  to  attempt  to  withdraw 
Christian  thought  and  belief  from  contact  or  companionship 
with  philosophic  inquiry  and  speculation,  as  the  Ritschlians 
would  have  us  to  do,  it  is  a  very  important  part  of  the  work  of 
a  Christian  Apologetics  to  show  how  Christianity  is  related  to 
both  true  and  false  philosophy. 

In  true  philosophy  it  has  a  friend  and  an  ally.  We  may 
even,  I  believe,  go  much  further,  and  maintain  that  true 
philosophy  and  true  Christianity  are  both  occupied,  although  in 
different  ways  and  with  different  ends,  with  the  same  truth, 
the  same  object.  The  philosophy  of  the  present  age  generally 
prefers,  and  for  intelligible  enough  reasons,  to  name  that 
object  not  God,  but  the  Absolute.  The  absolute  of  philosophy, 
however,  will  only  be  found  to  satisfy  even  the  speculative 
reason  when  apprehended  as  essentially  identical  with  the  self- 
existent  and  self-revealing  Triune  God  of  Christian  faith. 
Rational  Philosophy  and  Christian  Theology,  at  their  highest 
and  best,  are  coincident  and  accordant.  Each  bears  witness  not 
only  to  itself,  but  also  to  the  other.  It  would  be  an  evil  day  for 
both  were  they  wholly  dissociated.  But  that  day  is  never  likely 
to  come.  They  have  never  in  Christendom  been  seen  apart. 
Is  it  not  now  impossible  even  to  conceive  of  them  apart  ? 

It  is  only  in  false  forms  of  philosophy  that  Christianity  has 
adversaries  ;  only  in  philosophies  which  oppose  to  the  Christian 
view  of  God  and  the  universe  an  agnostic,  materialistic, 
pantheistic,  pessimistic  or  other  anti-Christian  creed.  The 
Christian  apologist  is  bound  to  combat  such  philosophies.  Were 
he,  when  in  the  name  of  philosophy  a  doctrine  is  propounded 
as  entitled  to  displace  the  Christian  faith,  not  to  challenge  the 


314  PRESENT-DAY    CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS. 

claims  of  that  doctrine,  he  would  practically  disown  the 
Christian  faith.  And  why  should  a  Christian  apologist  hesitate 
to  attack  an  anti-Christian  philosophy?  To  combat  a  false 
philosophy  is  to  fight  for  the  true.  And  philosophy,  even  as  it 
has  appeared  at  its  best,  cannot  reasonably  pretend  to  have  a 
higher  truth,  a  higher  authority,  a  higher  certitude,  a  higher 
value  than  Christianity.  Speculative  philosophy  is  much  more 
the  subject  of  internal  contradiction,  and  of  external  distrust, 
than  Christian  doctrine.  None  of  the  great  problems  with 
which  it  has  been  always  occupied  have  yet  been  solved,  none 
of  its  chief  antagonisms  harmonised.  It  may  be  doubted  if, 
apart  from  theistic  truth,  there  is  much  that  is  sure  and  solid 
in  what  passes  for  metaphysics ;  while  there  is  certainly  much 
in  it  that  is  very  dubious  and  nebulous.  Yet  there  are  not  a 
few  who  confidently  declare,  on  no  better  authority  than  that 
of  a  crude  metaphysics,  that  Christianity  has  no  right  to 
existence ;  that  all  belief  in  God  must  be  illusion,  seeing  that 
the  Divine  is  unknowable ;  that  all  certitude  is  confined  to 
sense ;  that  a  revelation  is  impossible ;  that  a  miracle  is 
incredible  and  unprovable ;  and  so  on.  Those  who,  under  the 
guise  of  philosophers,  thus  dogmatise,  may  be  very  foolish  and 
superficial  individuals,  but  they  find  hearers  and  readers,  believers 
and  admirers;  and  it  would  be  unwise  and  unsafe  to  leave 
,--<y  the  dogmas  of  what  they  call  their  philosophy  uncontra- 
dicted. 

Not  less  incumbent  on  a  Christian  Apologetics  at  the  present 
day  than  the  task  which  has  just  been  referred  to,  is  that  of 
carefully  tracing  the  natural  relations  between  the  positive 
sciences — physical,  mental,  and  historical — and  Christianity;  of 
showing  that  the  various  kinds  of  supposed  antagonism  between 
those  sciences  and  Christianity  have  arisen  entirely  from  un- 
fortunate misunderstandings,  due  to  the  unwisdom  either  of 
scientists  or  of  Christians,  or  of  both  ;  and  of  making  apparent 
that  Christianity  may  fairly  claim  to  supplement  science  in 
important  respects,  and  can  unquestionably  perform  certain 
inestimable  services  to  humanity  which  science  plainly  cannot. 

A  truly  Christian  view  of  the  world  cannot  be  opposed  to  a 
really  scientific  view  of  it.  The  world  with  which  Christian 
faith  is  concerned  is  just  the  world  which  God  has  made,  just 


PRESENT-DAY   CHRISTIAN   APOLOGETICS.  315 

the  world  as  it  actually  is,  and  as  genuine  science  shows  it  to 
be ;  the  very  same  world,  although  that  world,  regarded  as  a 
medium  through  which  the  God  revealed  in  Christ  to  men 
as  their  Father  and  Redeemer,  also  manifests  to  them  His 
attributes,  supplies  their  wants,  and  conducts  their  education. 
Whoever  would  hold  a  Christian  view  of  the  world  must  be 
ready  to  accept  in  its  entirety  the  scientific  view  of  it.  He 
is  no  more  free  to  reject  the  conclusions  of  the  physical  and 
mental  sciences  regarding  the  physical  and  mental  worlds, 
in  any  case  where  those  conclusions  have  been  properly  reached, 
than  to  reject  the  legitimately  attained  conclusions  of  Biblical 
Criticism,  Biblical  Hermeneutics,  &c.,  as  to  the  Bible.  The 
conclusions  of  the  former  sciences  are  the  most  accurate  and 
reliable  findings  of  the  human  mind  as  to  the  data  of  a  theology 
based  on  Nature,  just  as  those  of  the  latter  are  of  a  theology 
drawn  from  Scripture.  In  both  cases  alike  all  reasonings  of 
the  theologian  which  disregard  or  reject  those  data  are,  ijjso 
facto,  condemned.  A  conflict  between  the  results  of  those 
sciences  and  the  findings  of  theology  is  thus  simply  inconceiv- 
able. It  would  be  for  theology  equivalent  to  self-contradiction ; 
a  conflict  between  its  data  and  its  conclusions.  Belief  in  an 
essential  antagonism  between  Christian  theology  and  positive 
science  necessarily  implies  confused  thinking  in  those  who 
entertain  it. 

Yet  the  belief  is  very  prevalent,  and  is  the  source  of  much 
religious  scepticism.  For  its  prevalence,  and  the  scepticism 
to  which  it  gives  rise,  we  may  frankly  admit  that  theologians 
themselves  have  been  largely  responsible.  They  have  often 
assumed  very  wrong  attitudes  towards  science.  They  have 
discouraged,  depreciated,  and  persecuted  it ;  have  sought  to 
restrict  its  rightful  freedom  of  research,  to  dictate  to  it  what 
it  should  teach,  and  to  oppose  to  it  the  Bible  as  an  authority 
on  questions  as  to  which  it  has  no  authority,  and  which  can- 
not possibly  be  answered  hiblically,  but  only  according  to  the 
methods  of  the  special  sciences.  While  that,  however,  may 
go  far  to  account  for  so  many  people  readily  believing  religion 
or  theology  to  be  essentially  antagonistic  to  science,  it  does 
not  in  the  least  justify  their  belief.  The  notion  is  none  the 
less  a  crude  error  into  which  it  is  disappointing  to  find  any 


316  PRESENT-DAY    CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS. 

man  of  real  intellectual  distinction  fall,  as  sometimes  unfor- 
tunately even  such  men  do  fall. 

Let  us  take  note  of  two  examples.  An  eminent  American 
scientist,  the  late  Prof.  J.  W.  Draper,  wrote  a  well-known  book 
expressly  on  "The  Conflict  between  Religion  and  Science," 
and  another,  of  much  greater  importance,  on  "  The  Intellectual 
Development  of  Europe,"  equally  pervaded  by  the  idea  of  an 
essential  antagonism  between  religious  faith  and  scientific 
inquiry.  It  seems  strange  that  he  should  not  have  seen  that 
his  central  conception  or  fundamental  thesis  was  absurd ;  that 
he  might  as  well  have  undertaken  to  prove  that  there  had  been 
a  continuous  conflict  between  science  and  industrial  labour, 
or  between  science  and  aesthetic  culture,  or  between  science 
and  moral  conduct ;  that  there  cannot,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
be  inevitable  contradiction  between  any  kind  of  real  knowledge 
and  any  kind  of  normal  activity,  physical  or  spiritual.  No 
wonder  that,  with  such  an  irrational  dogma  as  his  fundamental 
assumption,  he  was  reduced  to  have  recourse  to  an  almost  con- 
tinuous identification  of  science  with  true  science,  rightly  regu- 
lated and  successful  investigation,  and  of  religion  with  false 
religion,  blind  and  servile  faith.  Such  a  procedure  is  mani- 
festly unfair  and  fallacious,  and  may  justly  be  held  to  have 
made  alike  the  polemic  of  Draper  against  religion  and  his 
attempt  at  historical  generalisation  quite  inconclusive. 

Another  eminent  American,  Mr  Andrew  Dickson  White, 
formerly  President  of  Cornell  University,  not  long  ago  repre- 
sentative of  the  United  States  at  St  Petersburg,  and  now  their 
representative  in  Berlin,  has  recently  written  a  work,  entitled 
"A  History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science  with  Theology  in 
Christendom."  It  is  far  more  elaborate,  and  in  every  way  far 
more  valuable  than  Draper's  "Conflict  between  Religion  and 
Science."  It  is  prodigiously  learned,  and,  so  far  as  I  can  judge, 
is  very  rarely  inaccurate  as  regards  the  statement  of  facts.  I 
know  of  no  book,  indeed,  nearly  so  likely  to  be  useful  to  a 
theologian  desirous  of  acquiring  clear  ideas  on  the  relations 
of  science  and  theology.  And  yet  the  author's  own  ideas  on 
the  subject  seem  to  me  very  far  from  clear  indeed. 

He  does  not,  one  is  happy  to  perceive,  regard  the  struggle, 
like  Draper,  as  one  between  science  and  religion.     No  candid 


PRESENT-DAY   CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS.  317 

reader  or  honest  critic  will  attribute  to  him  hostility  to  religion. 
His  treatment  of  Christianity  is  sympathetic  and  reverent.  In 
his  eyes  the  struggle  is  one  between  science  and  theology. 
That  struggle,  however,  he  represents  as  having  gone  on 
throughout  the  whole  history  of  Christendom,  and  as  having 
entered  into  every  department  of  inquiry ;  and  he  depicts 
theology  as  having  been  always  and  everywhere  the  enemy 
of  science,  unjustifiably  assailing  it,  arresting  for  a  time  its 
beneficent  progress,  thereby  invariably  causing  the  direst  evils 
both  to  religion  and  science,  and  in  the  end  always  suffering 
defeat.  From  its  commencement  to  its  close  the  work  is  occu- 
pied exclusively  with  what  is  supposed  to  be  historical  proof 
of  the  correctness  of  that  view. 

Considering  what  the  view  is,  and  how  largely  the  truth 
or  falsity  of  it  must  depend  on  what  is  meant  by  "  theology," 
Mr  White  ought  surely  to  have  made  some  endeavour  to 
ascertain  how  the  term  ought  to  be  applied.  That  he  has  un- 
fortunately not  done.  He  has  not  devoted  even  one  of  his 
more  than  eight  hundred  pages  to  the  consideration  of  what 
"theology"  means  or  ought  to  mean.  Instead  he,  without 
any  appearance  of  reason  or  attempt  at  justification,  identifies 
"theology"  with  "dogmatic  theology,"  and  "dogmatic  theo- 
logy" with  a  "theology  based  on  biblical  texts  and  ancient 
modes  of  thought " ;  in  other  words,  he  arbitrarily  elects  to 
mean  by  theology  an  effete  form  of  a  single  theological  discip- 
line, contrasts  such  theology  with  genuine  science  of  every 
kind,  and  describes  their  opposition  as  "  the  warfare  of  science 
with  theology."  Going  to  work  in  that  way  he  has,  of  course, 
as  utterly  failed  to  show  that  there  is  any  necessary  or  natural 
"  warfare  between  science  and  theology  "  as  Draper  failed  to 
prove  that  there  is  any  such  "  conflict  between  science  and 
religion." 

What  Mr  White  represents  as  theology  is,  in  reality,  only 
theology  of  an  ultra-conservative  and  uninquiring  kind — the 
unprogressive  theology  of  men  incapable  of  doing  justice  to 
ideas  and  truths  which  are  new  to  them.  He  has  had  in  the 
course  of  his  life  to  fight  a  good  fight  in  the  cause  of  educa- 
tional progress  and  the  freedom  of  science  against  a  theology 
of  that  kind  and  theologians  of  that  type.     And  the  error 


318  PRESENT-DAY    CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS. 

into  which  he  has  fallen  is  to  have  unduly  generalised  his 
own  experience,  and  identified  theology  of  a  crude  and  unen- 
lightened kind  with  theology  itself.  There  are,  however,  men 
in  America  who  have  had  to  fight  a  battle  as  severe  as  his 
own  against  the  same  sort  of  theology  and  the  same  class  of 
theologians,  and  who  have  fought  it  as  theologians  and  in  the 
interests  of  theology.  Those  men  have  equally  fought  for 
progress,  freedom,  and  science,  and  yet  not  ceased  to  be  theo- 
logians. That  fact  might  of  itself,  I  think,  have  sufficed  to 
prevent  Mr  White  from  concluding  that  throughout  the  whole 
history  of  Christendom  there  had  been  a  continual  struggle 
between  science  and  theology. 

It  might  even  have  suggested  to  him  that  that  was  not 
the  real  struggle  at  all ;  that  the  real  struggle  was  simply 
between  obscurantism  and  enlightenment,  knowledge  and 
ignorance,  candour  and  prejudice,  obstinate  adherence  to  old 
errors  and  readiness  to  accept  new  truths.  That  struggle  has 
run  through  all  ages  and  through  all  Christendom.  It  may 
be  traced  in  every  region  of  thought  and  department  of  science, 
and  in  none  more  clearly  than  in  theology.  Even  within 
so-called  "  dogmatic  theology "  there  has  always  been  a  con- 
flict between  science  and  dogmatism.  "  Dogmatic  theology  " 
itself  should  aim  at  being  scientific.  The  "dogmatic  theo- 
logian "  ought  not  to  be  a  theological  dogmatist  in  the  ordinary 
conversational  meaning  of  the  term  dogmatist,  but  the  culti- 
vator of  the  special  department  of  theology  called  "  dogmatic 
theology,"  one  which  no  enlightened  theologian  will  admit  to 
be  correctly  described  when  said  to  be  "based  on  biblical  texts 
and  ancient  modes  of  thought,"  or  desire  to  see  studied  in  any 
other  spirit  than  the  humble  and  truthful  spirit  of  science. 

In  a  word,  the  facts  adduced  by  Mr  White,  numerous,  accu- 
rately stated,  and  instructive  as  they  are,  afford  no  evidence  of 
a  warfare  of  science  per  se  with  theology  per  se.  They  are  all 
instances  illustrative  merely  of  the  laiv  of  progression  hy  anta- 
gonism— of  the  growth  of  wisdom  and  order  through  the  con- 
flict, counterpoise,  and  co-ordination  of  divergent  tendencies — 
and  if  Mr  White  had  formed  a  clearer  conception  of  that  law, 
he  would  not  have  confounded  it  with,  or  formulated  it  as,  a 
warfare  of  science  with  theology. 


PRESENT-DAY    CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS.  319 

While  constrained,  however,  to  pass  this  judgment  on  his 
work,  I  do  not  consider  that  the  fullest  acceptance  of  it  as 
warranted  need  lessen  to  any  great  extent  any  one's  estimate 
of  the  excellence  or  value  of  the  work.  It  is  a  work  written 
in  a  most  attractive  style,  comprehensively  planned,  carefully 
elaborated  in  every  section,  and  filled  with  a  marvellous  wealth 
of  varied  yet  always  relevant  learning.  The  spirit  which  pervades 
it  is  generous,  and  the  services  which  theologians  have  rendered 
to  the  sciences  are  exhibited  in  it  with  candour  and  impartiality. 
And  it  certainly  proves  more  conclusively  and  persuasively 
than  had  ever  been  done  before  the  great  practical  conclusion 
which  its  author  had  chiefly  at  heart  to  establish  and  enforce. 
No  intelligent  reader  can  rise  from  the  perusal  of  it  without 
having  his  conviction  of  the  folly  and  perversity  of  all  interfer- 
ence with  science  in  the  supposed  interest  of  religion  deepened, 
and  his  confidence  that  untrammelled  scientific  investigation 
will  only  benefit  religion  as  well  as  science  increased. 

The  fact,  however,  that  as  regards  the  general  relations  of 
science  and  theology  a  man  like  Mr  White  shows  the  same 
haziness  and  confusion  of  vision  as  Dr  Draper  had  shown 
regarding  those  of  science  and  religion,  is  surely  of  itself 
evidence  enough  that  a  Christian  Apologetics  is  needed  which 
will  clearly  and  adequately  exhibit  what  the  relations  of  science, 
religion,  theology,  and  Christianity  really  are. 

All  that  I  have  been  saying  suggests  the  further  reflection 
that  a  Christian  Apologetics  suited  to  the  wants  of  the  present 
day  must  occupy  itself  with  a  variety  of  topics  which  received 
little  or  no  notice  from  the  apologetic  writers  of  earlier  times. 
The  Christian  apologists  of  those  times  could  not  only  afford  to 
ignore,  but  could  not  be  expected  to  feel  the  need  of  a  number 
of  inquiries  which  all  who  now  attempt  to  present  any  compre- 
hensive vindication  of  Christianity  must  feel  bound  to  institute. 
They  could  get  more  rapidly  and  directly  to  the  discussion  of 
the  question,  Is  Christianity  what  it  claims  to  be,  or  is  it  not  ? 
than  we  can.  They  could  without  challenge  proceed  almost 
at  once  to  maintain  the  affirmative  on  the  strength  of  the 
evidences  attached  to  the  special  revelations  on  which  it  was 
held  to  rest.     That  their  successors  can  no  longer   do.     To 


320  PRESENT-DAY   CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS. 

proceed  so  in  the  present  state  of  philosophical  and  religious 
thought  would  show  extraordinary  ignorance  or  disregard  of 
the  difficulties  and  the  wants  of  the  vast  majority  of  the  in- 
credulous and  the  inquiring  whom  the  Christian  apologist  has 
now  to  endeavour  to  confute  and  convince.  In  other  words, 
a  Christian  Apologetics  such  as  the  present  age  requires  is 
under  the  necessity  of  dealing  with  not  a  few  questions  which, 
although  they  may  fairly,  perhaps,  be  regarded  as  simply 
preliminary  or  introductoiy,  are  all  of  real,  and  some  of  them 
of  decisive,  importance.  It  must  begin  with  an  adequate  dis- 
cussion of  such  underlying  or  fundamental  problems. 

Let  me  briefly  indicate  some  of  those  problems,  or  rather 
groups  of  problems.  (1)  There  are  all  the  questions  relative 
to  the  necessity  and  importance,  distinctive  nature  and  aims, 
proper  position  in  the  theological  system,  correct  limits,  true 
spirit  and  appropriate  methods  of  Christian  Apologetics.  Some 
of  those  questions  may  be  of  little  more  than  academic  interest, 
but  others  are  of  general  and  very  considerable  importance. 
So  much  depends,  for  example,  on  the  spirit  in  which  Chris- 
tianity is  either  advocated  or  resisted  that  a  clear  and  reasonable 
statement  of  the  way  in  which  the  claims  of  Christianity  should 
be  either  presented  or  examined  ought  certainly  to  be  found 
in  every  Christian  Apologetics.  So  a  great  deal  also  depends 
on  whether  Christian  apologists  are  content  that  their  apologies 
should  be  simply  Christian,  or  will  not  be  satisfied  unless  they 
are  also  confessional.  In  the  latter  case  they  will  be  drawn 
into  ecclesiastical  polemics,  and  that  can  hardly  fail  to  lessen 
the  effectiveness  of  their  vindication  of  the  common  faith  of 
Christians  as  set  forth  in  Scripture.  It  is  desirable,  I  think, 
to  keep  Christian  Apologetics  and  Churchly  Polemics  apart, 
and  as  a  Christian  apologist  to  aim  only  at  the  vindication  of 
what  is  of  the  very  essence  of  Christianity. 

(2)  A  Christian  Apologetics  should  not  fail  to  do  justice  to 
its  own  history,  and  to  show  the  real  character  and  significance 
of  the  conflict  between  Christian  faith  and  its  antagonists.  Its 
history  is  often  greatly  misrepresented ;  often  so  described  as 
to  give  the  impression  that  Christianity,  in  its  struggle  with 
secular  and  hostile  powers,  had  been  steadily  losing  ground ; 
that  each  successive  stage  of  the  struggle  had  ended  with  a 


PRESENT-DAY    CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS.  321 

result  unfavourable  to  the  faith,  and  indicative  of  its  eventual 
extinction.  Were  it  so,  there  could  be  no  stronger  argument 
against  Christianity,  and  hence  the  Christian  apologist  should 
show,  as  he  convincingly  may,  that  that  anti-Christian  reading 
of  history  is  a  very  erroneous  one,  and  that,  in  reality,  Christian 
faith  has  steadily  grown  in  self-knowledge,  in  clearness  of 
vision,  in  vitality,  in  range  and  power  of  influence  for  good, 
through  its  contact  and  conflicts  with  the  world  and  its  forces. 
"  The  earth,"  to  use  the  words  of  the  seer  of  Patmos,  has 
"  helped  the  woman."  The  world,  alike  through  its  good  and 
evil,  alike  through  co-operation  and  antagonism,  has  been  made 
subservient  to  the  welfare  of  the  Church,  and  the  progress  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God. 

(8)  As  the  object  which  Christian  Apologetics  seeks  to  vin- 
dicate is  Christianity  itself  in  its  essential  integrity,  obviously 
one  of  its  tasks  is  to  exhibit  the  main  features,  the  distinctive 
peculiarities,  the  chief  doctrines,  and  cardinal  facts  of  Chris- 
tianity, in  such  a  way  as  will  most  clearly  and  truthfully  show 
its  real  character.  The  best  Christian  Apologetics  must  be  the 
one  which  most  fully  proceeds  on  the  principle  that  Christianity 
is  its  own  best  vindication.  That  the  defence  of  Christianity  is 
essentially  its  self-defence,  and  that  the  attention  alike  of  those 
who  defend  and  of  those  who  resist  it  ought  to  be  especially 
concentrated  on  what  it  is  in  itself,  should  be  made  apparent 
from  the  outset  in  every  Christian  Apologetics.  How  Chris- 
tianity may  be  best  represented  with  reference  to  the  require- 
ments of  a  Christian  Apologetics  is  not  merely  a  problem  but 
a  complex  of  problems. 

(4)  There  are  questions  to  answer  as  to  the  nature  of  reli- 
gion, and  of  Christianity  as  religion.  Christianity  is  religion 
both  as  a  subjective  and  objective  fact;  both  as  personal  piety, 
a  special  form  of  individual  spiritual  life,  and  as  an  historical 
reality  and  factor  of  a  definite  kind — a  religion  among  religions. 
But  that  is  of  itself  sufficient  to  condemn  it  in  the  opinion  of 
many  theorists,  scientists,  and  other  men  of  the  present  day, 
who  have  imbibed  antitheistic  principles  and  irreligious 
sentiments.  In  the  departments  of  anthropology,  sociology, 
and  history  of  religions,  for  example,  a  host  of  books  have 
appeared  within  the  last  twenty  years  representing  all  religion 

X 


322  PRESENT-DAY    CHEISTIAX    APOLOGETICS. 

as  superstition,  all  piety  as  abnormal  and  diseased  feeling,  all 
religious  doctrines  as  illusory  beliefs,  all  religrious  institutions  as 
being  gradually  outgrown  and  inevitably  doomed  to  extinction, 
and  Christianity  as  in  no  essential  respects  a  unique  religious 
phenomenon  with  supreme  and  exclusive  claims  on  the  human 
reason,  heart,  and  will.  It  is  manifestly  incumbent  on  Chris- 
tian apologists  to  examine  the  presuppositions,  generalisations, 
and  arguments  from  which  such  conclusions  have  been  drawn, 
to  show  wherein  they  are  erroneous,  and  to  indicate  what  reli- 
gion and  Christianity  really  have  been,  are,  and  are  ever  likely 
to  be,  in  the  mind  and  history  of  man. 

(5)  All  questions  as  to  religion  lead  to  questions  as  to 
revelation.  Religion  so  far  as  true  rests  ultimately  on  general 
or  special,  natural  or  supernatural,  revelation.  Man  knows 
God  only  so  far  as  God  makes  Himself  known  to  man.  Hence 
a  Christian  Apologetics  has  in  its  preliminary  work  to  treat  of 
the  general  idea  of  Divine  self -revelation,  of  the  distinctive 
nature  of  its  media  or  forms,  the  springs  and  channels  of  spiri- 
tual truth,  of  their  inter-connection,  and  their  relationship  to 
the  crowning  revelation  through  Christ.  Christian  Apologetics 
should  be  broad-based  on  Divine  truth.  It  should  take  its 
stand  on,  and  draw  its  resources  from,  the  whole  process  of  the 
self-revelation  of  God,  which  in  the  fulness  of  time  reached 
mankind  in  and  through  Christ,  and  is  still  with  us  in  its 
records  and  results,  and  in  the  teaching  and  working  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  The  God  revealed  in  Christ  is  the  God  who  is 
also  revealed  in  physical  nature,  in  the  consciousness  and  con- 
science of  men,  in  the  providential  government  of  individuals, 
in  the  history  of  nations,  and  in  Scripture.  The  self-revelation 
of  God  is  the  most  general  form  of  Divine  activity,  inclusive  of 
creation,  history,  and  redemption,  and  so  centering  in  Christ 
that  all  Divine  revelation  is  "yea  and  amen"  in  Him.  And  it 
is  on  revelation  thus  understood — a  revelation  inclusive  of  all 
Divine  facts  and  utterances  as  ascertained  and  interpreted  in 
accordance  vnth  the  requirements  of  physical,  mental,  histori- 
cal, and  Biblical  science — that  a  Christian  Apologetics  should 
be  founded  in  order  satisfactorily  to  accomplish  its  work,  the 
defence  of  Christianity. 

(6)  Holy  Scripture  as  a  medium  of   Divine  revelation  has 


PRESENT-DAY    CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS.  323 

peculiarities  which  raise  questions  that  call  for  special  con- 
sideration in  a  Christian  Apologetics.  There  are,  for  instance, 
contrary  extremes  of  error  regarding  it  which  require  to  be 
examined  and  disposed  of.  Some  affirm  its  absolute  inerrancy 
and  infallibility  even  in  regard  to  matters  clearly  within  the 
provinces  of  criticism,  historical  research,  and  positive  science. 
That,  however,  is  to  make  for  it  a  claim  which  it  has  nowhere 
made  for  itself,  and  which  it  is  impossible  to  substantiate. 
Others  deny  to  it  the  supreme  normative  authority  and  unique 
spiritual  value  which  rightfully  belong  to  it  as  the  vehicle  of  the 
special  Divine  revelation  that  reached  its  consummation  in  the 
redemptive  work  of  Christ.  It  is  necessary  to  make  apparent 
in  what  respects  they  also  err.  Further,  it  is  especially  in 
connection  with  the  revelation  transmitted  to  us  in  the  Bible 
that  there  is  a  call  on  the  Christian  apologist  to  show  the 
futility  of  all  a  i^nori  objections  to  the  reality  of  special  re- 
velation in  the  forms  of  inspiration,  prophecy,  or  miracle.  He 
ought  to  exhibit  the  unreasonableness  of  pronouncing  it  in 
any  of  its  forms  impossible  or  unprovable,  or  of  denying  in  any 
given  case  its  reality,  prior  to  or  apart  from  examination  of 
the  alleged  or  relevant  evidence.  The  limits  neither  of  Divine 
self- manifestation  no?'  of  human  knoidedge  can  he  fixed  hy  any 
preliminary  theorising.  Epistemology  has  no  more  certain  or 
valuable  lesson  to  teach  us  than  that.  The  whole  history  of 
knowledge  confirms  it, 

(7)  I  must  further  mention,  as  belonging  to  the  preliminary 
duties  of  Christian  Apologetics,  an  adequate  exhibition  of  what 
are  the  kinds  of  evidence  applicable  to  the  proof  of  Christianity, 
and  an  adequate  refutation  of  the  views  which  would  confine 
the  proof  of  it  to  some  only  of  its  real  evidences.  They  are 
certainly  much  needed.  There  are  views  of  the  nature  of  the 
evidence  for  Christianity  current  among  the  literati  and  even 
theologians  of  the  present  day,  as  superficial  and  defective  as 
those  which  prevailed  in  England  in  the  time  of  the  Deists,  or 
in  Germany  in  the  time  of  the  Eationalists ;  views  necessarily 
leading  to  a  most  inadequate  and  unjust  estimate  of  the  amount 
and  weight  of  the  real  evidence.  With  the  exception  of  im- 
mediate sensuous  perception  and  mathematical  demonstration, 
Christianity  is  supported  by  every  conceivable  form  and  variety 


324  PRESEXT-DAY    CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS. 

of  evidence,  so  that  the  proof  of  it,  taken  in  its  entirety,  is 
vast  and  varied,  comprehensive  and  conclusive,  in  the  highest 
degree. 

The  main  work  of  a  Christian  Apologetics,  however,  is,  as  I 
have  already  emphasised,  the  work  of  proving  the  Divine  truth 
and  excellence  of  the  whole  essential  content  or  substance  of 
Christianity.  And  obviously,  in  order  to  accomplish  that  work, 
it  must  so  enter  into  that  specific  content  or  substance,  and  so 
lay  hold  of  what  is  therein,  as  to  be  able  to  present  it  and  its 
claims  to  doubting  and  denying  minds  in  the  way  best  calcu- 
lated to  gain  them  to  faith  and  obedience. 

This  department — the  chief  and  properly  the  largest  de- 
partment— of  its  work  falls  naturally  into  two  great  divisions, 
as  the  essential  content  of  Christianity  consists  either  of  ideas 
or  facts,  either  of  religious  affirmations  or  of  redemptive  acts. 
The  division  implies  no  absolute  separation  or  disjunction,  yet 
it  rests  on  a  real,  obvious,  and  important  distinction. 

The  question  may  be  asked,  With  which — ideas  or  facts,  doc- 
trines or  acts — should  a  Christian  Apologetics  begin  in  dealing 
directly  with  its  main  work  ?  It  is  a  question  on  which  I  am 
not  prepared  to  give  any  decided  answer,  or  to  say  more  than 
that  it  seems  to  me  that,  in  the  present  state  of  controversy 
as  to  the  truth  of  Christianity,  to  begin  with  the  ideas  or 
doctrines  will  be  found  the  more  advantageous  way.  They  are 
general,  while  the  facts  are  particular.  They  are  more  easily 
ascertainable  and  less  disputable.  There  are  unquestionably 
a  Christian  doctrine  as  to  God  and  His  operations,  a  Christian 
doctrine  as  to  Man  and  his  relationships  and  requirements,  a 
Christian  doctrine  of  Morals,  a  Christian  doctrine  of  Redemp- 
tion, and  a  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  not 
to  speak  of  more  special  doctrines.  So  far  as  his  needs  extend, 
the  Christian  apologist  can  start  with  these  doctrines  without 
its  being  possible  for  any  one  to  deny  that  they  are  Christian 
doctrines.  It  is  also  comparatively  easy  to  prove  their  con- 
sistency with  the  findings  of  true  reason  and  the  disclosures 
of  general  revelation,  and  their  superiority  as  solutions  of  the 
most  momentous  spiritual  and  practical  problems  to  all  those  to 
be  found  either  in  the  religions  or  philosophies  of  the  world. 


PRESENT-DAY   CHRISTIAN   APOLOGETICS.  325 

An  intelligent  Christian  apologist  will,  indeed,  certainly 
not  undertake  to  show  tliat  the  Christian  doctrinal  system  is 
xokolly  comfrchcnsihlc.  He  will  readily  acknowledge  the  pre- 
sence of  mystery  in  special  not  less  than  in  general  revelation. 
The  creature  can  never  be  rationally  supposed  wholly  to  com- 
prehend either  the  mode  of  being  or  the  ways  of  working  of 
the  Creator.  Through  whatever  medium  the  human  soul  rises 
into  the  presence  of  its  God,  it  thereby  cannot  fail  to  come 
into  contact  with  mystery,  with  what  is  transcendent  and 
incomprehensible.  But  that  no  more  makes  it  irrational  or 
presumptuous  for  a  Christian  apologist  to  undertake  to  show 
the  inherent  reasonableness  of  Christian  doctrines,  than  for  a 
physical  scientist  to  engage  to  give  reasons  for  his  scientific 
beliefs.  The  physical  scientist  confidently  teaches  many  things 
which  he  apprehends  but  does  not  comprehend,  and  is  quite 
justified  in  doing  so.  The  Christian  apologist  is  equally 
entitled  to  do  the  same. 

What,  then,  may  the  Christian  apologist  undertake,  without 
presumption,  to  prove  regarding  Christian  doctrines?  Well, 
the  intrinsic  reasonableness  of  every  truly  Christian  doctrine. 
There  is  not  one  of  them  contrary  to  reason,  inherently  irra- 
tional ;  nor  is  there  any  one  of  them  from  which  an  enlightened 
conscience  can  revolt  as  immoral.  In  equivalent  terms,  there 
is  no  real  incongruity  between  any  of  them  and  the  legitimate 
dictates  of  man's  rational  and  moral  faculties.  Nor  is  there 
any  genuinely  Christian  doctrine  which  is  merely  a  mystery 
or  enigma,  an  assertion  or  utterance  which  we  are  enjoined 
to  believe,  yet  which  we  are  incapable  of  intelligently  appre- 
hending, accepting,  or  defending.  Nor  are  men  asked  to 
receive  any  such  doctrine  merely  on  authority,  even  the  highest. 
God  speaks  to  us  through  the  revelation  in  Christ,  as  He  speaks 
to  us  through  the  revelation  in  Nature,  with  authority ;  but  in 
the  former  not  less  than  in  the  latter  with  an  authority  which 
does  not  ignore,  contradict,  or  crush  reason  and  conscience,  but 
which  continuously  appeals  to  them  so  as  to  elicit  and  educate 
whatever  powers  of  rational  and  moral  insight  the  human 
spirit  has  received.  The  more  rational  and  moral  insight  a 
man  possesses,  the  more  reasonableness,  truth,  and  goodness 
will  he  see  in  all  really   Christian   doctrine.     The    Christian 


326  PRESENT-DAY    CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS. 

apologist  who  has  any  fair  measure  of  it  will  not  find  it  difficult 
to  show  that,  although  all  other  religions,  without  exception, 
have  among  their  distinctive  doctrines  tenets  which  are 
contrary  to  reason,  inconsistent  with  conclusions  of  science, 
dishonouring  to  the  Divine  Being,  and  harmful  to  human 
nature,  it  is  not  so  with  any  of  the  doctrines  constitutive  of 
the  Christian  system  of  ideas. 

He  may  do  more.  He  may  show  that  all  Christian  doctrines 
are  satisfactory  answers  to  questions  of  the  most  vital  import- 
ance, which  have  only  been  sufficiently  answered  through  Chris- 
tianity ;  that  they  all  relate  to  most  momentous  spiritual  and 
practical  problems,  and  that  as  solutions  of  those  problems  they 
are  immeasurably  superior  in  rationality  to  all  others  which 
have  been  suggested,  and  have  quite  naturally  and  legitimately 
had  an  incomparably  greater  influence  for  good.  He  may  show 
that  even  the  most  distinctive  doctrines  of  Christianity,  and 
those  in  which  the  presence  of  mystery  is  least  deniable,  are 
abundantly  attested  by  their  own  Divine  reasonableness,  their 
own  spiritual  light  and  virtue.  The  writings  of  Erskine  and 
Campbell  with  reference  to  the  Atonement,  and  of  Westcott  as 
regards  the  Incarnation,  may  suffice  to  prove  that. 

Of  course,  what  I  have  thus  affirmed  applies  only  to  doctrines 
in  so  far  as  they  are  truly  Christian,  and  only  to  the  extent  in  which 
they  are  ex'pressly  or  implicitly  contained  in  the  Christian  reve- 
lation. The  Christian  apologist  is  under  no  obligation  to  vin- 
dicate doctrines  in  their  merely  confessional  form.  Although, 
for  example,  he  cannot  refuse  to  maintain  the  intrinsic  truth 
and  self-evidencing  reasonableness  of  the  doctrine  of  vocation 
or  calling  so  prominent  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  and  of  the 
doctrines  of  fore-knowledge  and  fore-ordination  so  prominent 
in  the  teaching  of  St  Paul,  he  is  not  bound  to  do  the  same  for 
all  that  Augustine  and  Calvin  have  taught  as  to  election  and 
predestination.  As  simply  a  Christian  apologist,  he  has  no 
direct  concern  with  any  doctrine  held  either  by  Christian 
Churches  or  Christian  individuals  in  so  far  as  it  is  either 
inconsistent  with  or  not  implied  in  Christian  revelation. 

The  Christian  apologist  may  further  prove  with  comparative 
ease  that  the  doctrines  of  Christianity,  many  and  diverse  as 
they  are,  are  not  isolated  tenets,  not  disjecta  memhra  of  aught 


PRESENT-DAY   CHRISTIAN   APOLOGETICS.  327 

without  unity  of  life  and  organisation,  but  elements  of  a  whole 
claiming  to  be  The  Truth.  They  are  constitutive  portions  of  a 
system  of  the  most  wonderful  richness  and  comprehensiveness, 
in  which  nothing  belonging  to  it  has  been  found  fatally  weak, 
false,  or  pernicious ;  of  a  vast  economy  of  love  and  grace,  all 
the  parts  of  which  harmonise,  mutually  support  one  another, 
and  tend  to  a  single  end,  and  that  the  greatest  and  the  best 
conceivable.  The  truths  of  Christianity  have  each  an  evidence 
proper  and  peculiar  to  itself,  but  each  is  so  connected  with  all 
and  all  with  each,  that  their  united  and  consentient  testimony 
is  strong  indeed. 

A  Christian  Apologetics  such  as  the  present  time  requires 
should  perform  in  a  thorough  and  comprehensive  way  the  task 
now  indicated.  Obviously,  it  is  a  very  large  task.  In  fact,  the 
division  of  it  to  which  I  am  now  referring  is  coextensive  with 
the  whole  sphere  of  Christian  Dogmatics.  It  goes  over  the 
same  ground ;  follows  step  by  step  along  the  same  route. 
Hence  a  Christian  Apologetics  and  a  Christian  Dogmatics  ought 
to  be  of  rights  the  most  closely  connected  of  companions.  Chris- 
tian Dogmatics  deals  entirely,  and  Christian  Apologetics  deals 
largely  with  Christian  doctrines,  with  the  same  matter,  with 
merely  a  difference  of  manner  determined  by  difference  of  aim. 

Christian  Dogmatics  seeks  so  to  exhibit  Christian  doctrine 
to  those  who  are  Christian  in  faith,  that  they  may  know 
as  fully  as  possible  the  treasures  of  truth  implied  in  their 
faith.  Christian  Apologetics,  so  far  as  occupied  with  Chris- 
tian doctrine,  seeks  so  to  present  it  to  those  who  are  pre- 
judiced against  it  and  hostile  to  it  as  may  most  surely  and 
effectively  disarm  them  of  their  prejudices  and  win  them  to 
the  faith.  What  makes  the  discipline  called  Christian  Apolo- 
getics specially  needed  are  the  wants  of  those  who  do  not 
share  in  the  Christian  faith.  In  vindicating  before  them, 
however,  the  cause  of  Christian  truth,  the  claims  of  Christian 
doctrine,  a  Christian  apologist  should  find  invaluable  support 
and  aid  in  Christian  Dogmatics.  The  success  of  a  man's  advo- 
cacy of  Christian  doctrine  must  in  all  circumstances  greatly 
depend  on  the  extent  and  thoroughness  of  his  knowledge  of  it. 

It  is  only  in   the   next   section   of   Christian  Apologetics, 


328  PRESENT-DAY    CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS. 

however,  that  we  get  to  the  very  heart  of  the  science.  Chris- 
tianity stands  or  falls  with  Christ  Himself.  Christian  faith  is 
faith  which  receives  and  rests  on  Him.  The  evidences  of 
Christianity,  like  its  doctrines,  its  morality,  and  its  history, 
centre  in  Him.  Were  Christ  a  mere  man,  a  mere  religious 
genius  like,  say,  Francis  d'Assisi,  but  greater,  the  Christian 
Church  has  one  plain  duty  before  her :  it  is  to  make  open 
confession  that  she  has  been  deluded  herself  and  has  deceived 
the  nations,  and  that  Christendom,  which  was  founded  and 
built  up  and  still  stands  on  the  faith  that  Jesus  was  "the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God,"  rests  on  a  gigantic  fiction. 

Hence  the  special  interest  of  the  arguments  from  the  self- 
testimony  of  Jesus,  from  His  sinlessness,  from  Messianic  pro- 
phecy, from  the  miraculous  attestation  of  His  mission,  and 
especially  that  furnished  by  His  resurrection,  from  the  origins 
of  the  Christian  Church  and  the  spiritual  endowments  of  its 
early  disciples,  and  from  the  characters  and  lives  of  the 
Apostles, 

Hence,  also,  the  supreme  importance  apologetically  of  the 
foundation  of  all  those  arguments,  the  documents  relating  to 
Jesus,  i.e.  the  writings  of  the  New  Testament  generally,  and 
especially  the  Four  Gospels.  No  enlightened  Christian  apolo- 
gist can  wish  to  have  those  documents  exempted  in  any  way 
from  the  most  sifting  analysis  and  strictest  scrutiny  of  criti- 
cism. The  more  accurately  a  man  estimates  the  powers  of 
criticism  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  strength  of  the  Eock  on 
which  the  Church  is  founded  on  the  other,  the  less,  I  am  per- 
suaded, will  he  be  inclined  to  fear  that  any  New  Testament 
criticism  will  displace  the  corner-stone  of  the  Kingdom  of  God 
on  earth.  When  criticism  has  done  its  utmost  it  will  be  as 
apparent  as  ever  it  was,  that,  through  the  documents  of  the 
New  Testament,  mankind  has  the  means  of  attaining  to  a 
knowledge  of  Jesus  Christ  far  more  intimate,  profound,  and 
reliable  than  it  has  of  any  other  person  in  ancient  history,  and 
good  grounds  for  believing  that  He  was  what  the  catholic  faith 
of  the  Church  holds  Him  to  have  been. 

Besides  the  arguments  which  tend  directly  to  prove  the 
truth  of  the  doctrines  and  the  facts  constitutive  of  Christianity, 


PRESENT-DAY   CHRISTIAN   APOLOGETICS.  329 

there  are  others  which  yield  indirect  yet  powerful  confirmation 
to  the  Christian  system,  and  which  ought  by  no  means  to  be 
overlooked  or  depreciated.  They  may  be  called  Corroborative 
Proofs,  and  regarded  as  constituting  a  class.  The  chief  of 
them  are  these  four :  the  Analogical,  the  Historical,  the  Argu- 
ment from  the  Adaptedness  of  Christianity  to  Human  Nature, 
and  the  Experimental. 

The  first  undertakes  to  show  that  the  analogies  and  har- 
monies between  the  Christian  system  and  the  systems  of 
Nature  (the  physical  world)  and  of  Providence  (as  displayed  in 
history)  either  attest  in  some  considerable  measure  the  truth 
and  Divine  oriarin  of  the  former,  or  at  least  make  evident  that 
correct  views  of  the  latter  systems  in  no  way  conflict  with 
belief  in  such  a  system  of  special  revelation  as  Christianity 
implies.  The  most  remarkable  apologetic  work  in  English 
literature — the  "Analogy"  of  Bishop  Butler — only  professes 
to  perform  the  humbler  of  these  two  tasks,  namely,  to  prove 
that  the  same  sort  of  objections  which  are  urged  against  the 
Christian  scheme  may  be  equally  urged  against  the  constitution 
and  course  of  nature  (including  history),  and  are  not  valid  in 
either  case.  But  it  really  does  more  than  it  promises,  while 
it  admirably  accomplishes  all  that  it  promises. 

It  is  a  book,  however,  which  requires  to  be  carefully  studied, 
and  which  has  had  much  injustice  done  to  it  even  by  able  and  dis- 
tinguished men.  The  criticisms  passed  on  it  by  Dr  Martineau, 
Mr  Bagehot,  Miss  Hennell,  Mr  Leslie  Stephen,  Mr  Matthew 
Arnold,  and,  I  regret  to  add,  even  the  late  deeply  and  most 
justly  lamented  Principal  Caird,  rest  mainly  on  strange  mis- 
conceptions as  to  its  contents  and  argumentation  for  which 
there  is  hardly  any  excuse  to  be  found  in  the  work  itself.  Mr 
Gladstone,  in  his  "  Studies  subsidiary  to  the  Works  of  Butler," 
did  good  service  by  his  effective  criticism  of  such  irrelevant 
and  misleading  criticisms. 

Mr  Gladstone  was  often  tempted  by  his  theological  leanings 
to  enter  into  theological  controversies  on  subjects  as  to  which 
he  had  no  special  competency,  and  could  only  be  at  the  most 
a  dexterous  and  impassioned  special  pleader ;  but  this  was  not 
the  case  when  Butler  was  his  subject.  He  had  been  all  through 
his  life  a  careful  and  earnest  student  of  Butler's  writings,  and 


330  PRESENT-DAY    CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS. 

he  unquestionably  knew  them  better  than  any  of  the  censors  of 
them  whom  he  took  to  task.  It  may  appear  presumptuous  to 
speak  thus,  but  be  it  presumptuous  or  not,  I  speak  as  one 
who  has  not  only  studied  but  also  professionally  lectured  and 
examined  on  Butler  for  more  than  thirty  years,  and  who  would 
deem  it  an  incalculable  misfortune  were  the  study  of  such  a 
work  as  the  "Analogy"  in  any  degree  neglected  because  of  accu- 
sations and  arguments  which  prove  nothing  except  the  inadequate 
acquaintance  with  Butler's  text  of  some  of  Butler's  critics. 

Analogical  argumentation,  however,  may  in  theology  as 
well  as  in  other  sciences  be  so  far  employed  to  establish  positive 
as  well  as  negative  conclusions,  and  has  been  successfully  so 
employed  by  Buchanan,  Gilett,  and  other  apologetic  writers. 
When  thus  applied  it  is,  viewed  generally,  to  the  effect  that 
there  are  such  positive  analogies  between  the  Christian  and  the 
natural  systems,  and  that  the  former  so  supplements  and 
elucidates  the  latter,  that  they  must  be  concluded  to  be  depart- 
ments of  one  great  system,  and  to  have  originated  with  the 
same  author. 

The  Historical  Proof,  consisting  as  it  does  of  the  evidences 
which  may  be  drawn  from  the  history  which  directly  prepared 
the  way  for  the  rise  and  diffusion  of  Christianity,  from  the 
ethnic  religions  with  which  as  historical  phenomena  it  may  be 
compared  and  contrasted,  and  from  its  historical  influence  and 
effects  since  apostolic  times,  is  manifestly  a  very  comprehensive 
and  interesting  argument. 

It  is  also  a  very  powerful  one.  "  The  tree  is  known  by  its 
fruits  "  is  the  simple  general  premiss  on  which  it  rests.  It  is  a 
premiss  which  the  common  sense,  the  universal  reason  of  man- 
kind easily  grasps,  and  which  no  sceptical  subtlety  misapplied 
is  likely  to  succeed  in  discrediting.  Apart  from  that  it  rests 
only  on  facts  which  may  by  historical  methods  be  accu- 
rately and  certainly  ascertained,  and  such  facts,  when  they  are 
abundant  and  accordant,  speak  plainly  and  strongly. 

Closely  connected  with  it  is  the  argument  drawn  from  the 
adaptedness  of  Christianity  to  human  nature.  That  adaptedness 
is  an  all-sided  and  all-comprehensive  one,  embracing  the  whole 


PRESENT-DAY   CHRISTIAN   APOLOGETICS.  331 

of  human  nature  for  good,  and  only  for  good,  in  all  its  relations, 
and  at  all  times.  Many  religions  have  an  adaptedness  to 
human  nature  which,  whUe  it  explains  their  success,  condemns 
them,  since  it  is  adaptedness  to  what  is  false  and  debasing  in 
human  nature.  Christianity  alone  among  religions,  shows  only 
an  ennobling  adaptedness ;  only  adaptedness  to  the  true  wants 
of  human  nature ;  only  adaptedness  to  correct  and  restrain 
what  is  evil,  and  to  educe  and  perfect  what  is  good,  in  human 
nature.  Yet  it  is  an  adaptedness  which  corresponds  to  and 
includes  the  entire  constitution  of  man,  and  which  applies  to 
him  as  an  individual,  and  in  his  various  social  relationships, 
and  in  the  Godward  aspects  of  his  being ;  for  Christianity  as 
the  religion  of  absolute  truth  is  perfectly  adapted  to  his  in- 
tellect, as  the  religion  of  absolute  holy  love  perfectly  adapted 
to  his  heart  and  its  affections,  and  as  the  religion  of  absolute 
righteousness  combined  with  infinite  grace  perfectly  adapted  to 
his  moral  and  volitional  nature. 

The  adaptedness  of  Christianity  to  human  nature  is,  of 
course,  what  it  is  because  Christianity  itself  is  what  it  is. 
Christianity  satisfies  the  wants  of  human  nature  through  the 
character  of  its  own  contents.  Its  satisfaction  of  them  is  a 
proof  of  the  truth  and  excellence  of  its  contents. 

Owing  to  the  great  interest  recently  taken  in  the  study 
of  the  History  of  Religions,  the  argument  to  which  I  am  re- 
ferring has  been  greatly  confirmed  and  enriched,  and  has 
probably  increased  in  popularity  more  than  any  other  of  the 
Christian  proofs.  Hence,  following  the  spirit  of  the  times, 
one  well-known  German  apologist  treats  it  as  the  one  all- 
comprehensive  argument,  and  some  of  the  Ritschlians  make 
the  History  of  Eeligions  a  department  of  Christian  Apologetics, 
yet  exclude  from  the  latter  the  greater  part  of  what  properly 
belongs  to  it.  All  such  narrowness  is  evil.  It  necessarily 
leads  to  a  most  inadequate  and  unjust  estimate  of  the  amount 
and  weight  of  the  real  evidence. 

No  Christian  Apologetics  which  would  meet  the  wants  of 
the  age  should  neglect  what  is  called  the  Experimental  Argu- 
ment — one  which,  although  often  so  far  dealt  with,  has  never 
been  treated  with  the  care  which  it  deserves. 


332  PRESENT-DAY   CHRISTIAN    APOLOGETICS. 

There  is  no  truth  more  requiring  to  be  borne  in  mind  by 
the  Christian  Apologist  than  that  Christianity  is  an  essentially 
practical  thing,  and  that,  consequently,  like  every  such  thing, 
a  real  and  sure  knowledge  of  it  can  only  be  practically,  experi- 
mentally, acquired.  No  amount  of  proof,  no  accumulation  of 
evidence,  on  behalf  of  Christianity  can  be  trusted  to  produce 
an  assured  Christian  faith,  an  entire,  an  active  Christian  certi- 
tude, in  those  who  do  not  comply  with  its  requirements  as  a 
moral  and  spiritual  life — who  do  not  so  yield  themselves  to 
its  influences  as  to  experience  its  practical  power. 

This  does  not  imply  that  Christian  experience  is  a  substitute 
for  other  evidence,  or  warrant  us  to  dispense  with  other  evi- 
dence. We  cannot  have  Christian  experience  except  by  appro- 
priation of  Christian  truth,  and,  if  there  be  Christian  truth  to 
appropriate,  that  truth  must  have  evidences  by  which  it  may 
be  recognised  and  by  which  experience  is  enlightened  and 
sustained.  Yet  none  the  less  is  the  true  path  to  an  assured 
certainty  of  Christian  truth  the  practical  appropriation  of  it 
through  the  will,  the  practical  realisation  of  it  in  the  life.  So 
experience  testifies.  And  it  only  confirms  the  words  of  the 
Master,  "My  doctrine  is  not  Mine,  but  His  that  sent  Me. 
If  any  man  ivill  do  His  luill,  he  shall  knoiv  of  the  doctrine, 
whether  it  he  of  God,  or  whether  I  speak  of  Myself" 

Just  a  word  in  conclusion.  Christian  Apologetics  has  its 
limits,  and  the  Christian  apologist  ought  to  realise  that  it  has 
them.  He  should  not  be  over-confident  of  its  powers.  Mere 
apologetics,  even  of  the  highest  order,  will  not  suffice  to  con- 
vince of  the  truth  of  Christianity  those  who  have  no  germs  of 
natural  piety  within  them,  no  spiritual  susceptibility,  no  sense 
of  the  Divine ;  those  who  only  hate  what  the  Gospel  demands, 
and  only  love  what  it  condemns.  The  very  best  exposition  and 
most  earnest  enforcement  of  Christian  evidences  will  never  of 
themselves  convert  a  human  soul  or  produce  in  it  full  Christian 
certitude.  Mere  light,  however  pure  and  bright,  will  not  en- 
lighten where  there  is  no  appropriate  organ  of  vision.  Only 
those  who  have  bodily  eyes  can  see  bodily  things,  and  only 
those  who  have  spiritual  eyesight  can  discern  spiritual  things. 

As  for  full  Christian  certitude,  it  is  far  too  great  a  reward 


PRESENT-DAY   CHRISTIAN   APOLOGETICS.  333 

to  be  given  to  any  mere  intellectual  assent  or  exertion.  There 
is  an  absolute  and  infallible  certainty  which  is  not  attainable  by 
any  conditioned  and  fallible  creature.  Such  certainty,  how- 
ever, is  not  required  in  religion  any  more  than  in  science, 
philosophy,  or  ordinary  life.  The  vast  amount  of  manifold  and 
cumulative  evidence  which  can  be  adduced  for  Christianity 
is  amply  sufficient  to  exclude  any  practical  chance  of  error, 
although  not  all  possibility  of  doubt  or  denial.  Those  who 
urge  us  to  put  all  probable  evidence  aside,  and  fall  back  ex- 
clusively instead  on  intuition,  or  faith,  or  feeling,  which  cannot 
themselves  at  the  utmost  yield  more  than  probable  evidence,  as 
sources  of  absolute  certitude,  ask  us  to  abandon  a  practically 
strong  and  sure  foundation  for  one  which  is  comparatively  weak 
and  suspicious.  And  those  who  go  further,  and  ask  us  to  put 
our  trust  in  the  speculative  dialectics  or  metaphysical  hypo- 
theses of  some  individual  philosopher,  as,  for  instance,  of  Hegel 
or  Green,  will  generally  be  found  to  recommend  us  to  build  on 
what  is  merely  a  fog-bank — a  process  which  will  assuredly  not 
lead  us  to  a  certainty  that  cannot  be  subverted  or  shaken. 

Complete  religious  certitude  is  reserved  for  those  who  shut 
their  eyes  against  no  kind  of  good  evidence  to  spiritual  truth ; 
who  humbly  and  honestly  assent  to  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Christ  in 
whatever  ways  it  comes  to  them  ;  and  who,  further,  not  merely 
assent  to  it,  but  also  faithfully  strive  to  act  up  to  its  demands 
day  by  day,  and  in  all  spheres  of  their  life  and  duty.  "  Then 
shall  we  know,  if  we  follow  on  to  know  the  Lord."  Then — if 
we  fulfil  that  condition — we  shall  get  the  perfect  certitude 
we  seek.  Until  then  we  have  no  right  to  expect  it,  nor  is  it 
desirable  that  we  should  get  it. 


PRINTED   BY   WILLIAM   BLACKWOOD   AND   SONS. 


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